Inevitability
by xerxia31
Summary: For Prompts in Panem farewell tour Day 2: What if? What if Peeta and Prim hadn't been reaped? Inspired by the canon line 'this would have happened anyway'. -Trigger warning: child abuse, underage. Rated M. (Contains lines directly lifted from, and paraphrased from, The Hunger Games trilogy, as well as scenes from the books reenvisioned. 'cause that's kind of what fanfiction is.
1. Chapter 1

Reaping day dawns bright and cloudless with the promise of a gorgeous sunny day. Katniss Everdeen fishes in the morning with her best friend Gale Hawthorne, and they gather strawberries, but they're back at their respective homes early. It's Prim's first reaping, and Katniss wants to be there to comfort her little sister. Only one of Gale's three siblings is old enough for the reaping this year, but the younger two are nervous for their big brothers.

A Seam girl is reaped, Katniss only knows her by sight, she's in Gale's year at school. She's 18, one of the oldest of this year's tributes, but underfed, scrawny and weak. This was her last reaping, if she hadn't been chosen she would have been free and clear now. The crowd barely reacts, older Seam kids are reaped every year, they're the ones with the most slips in the bowls. When the boy's name is called, however, an almost inhuman wail rises from somewhere in the crowd of waiting townsfolk. Davey Cartwright is only 13, all blond curls and chubby cheeks, he looks like a cherub. It's rare that merchants are reaped, they seldom have to take tesserae, and Davey would only have had two slips in the bowl, but the odds weren't in his favour.

Katniss grabs Prim, hugging her hard, safe for another year. They walk home with their mother, and with Gale and his family. Tonight there will be fish stew and strawberries and silent prayers of thanks. It doesn't feel right to celebrate when there are two families grieving, but the relief is palpable.

Everyone gets a day off for the reaping, but it's business as usual in the district the day after, back to work, back to school, normal except for the mandatory viewing in the evenings, though this early it's nothing but recaps and analysis. The Games don't start until two weeks after the reaping, but there will be interviews and training scores and the tribute parade for the Capitol's entertainment before that. Katniss notices Delly Cartwright is missing from their classes only because Madge points it out while they have lunch side by side. Delly is missing the next day too, but then it's the weekend and Katniss doesn't give any more thought to it.

Summer weekends are when she and Gale can hunt from dawn to dusk, bringing in as much as possible to salt and store away for the winter, and to trade for things they'll need when the weather turns. On Saturday evening they watch the opening ceremonies on the big screens in the town square, crowded together with their families and most of the district. Once the games start people generally do their mandatory viewing at home, but the tribute parade is one last chance to see the children who were reaped looking healthy and alive. Little Davey looks lost on his chariot, a child playing dress-up, wearing daddy's coal miner helmet, a generous coating of coal dust and little else.

Monday is rainy, so there's no hunting before school. Madge and Katniss eat lunch silently as always; together, but not really together. Madge elbows Katniss though, to get her attention, and points across the room with her chin. Delly Cartwright is back at school; attendance is mandatory until after your last reaping, the peacekeepers would have been banging on her door if she'd missed another day. But instead of sitting surrounded by other merchant kids like she used to, Delly is alone, slumped at a table near the other kids, but not too close, her hair lank and dull, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. The merchant kids who are her friends don't seem to understand her grief, or maybe it's just that most of them have no experience with loss, so for the most part they shy away from Delly. A few stop with a quiet word but none stay, and after lunch Katniss watches as Delly shuffles back to class with her head down, alone.

She doesn't mean to keep tabs on Delly, but somehow she can't help it. Every day she notices Delly looking worse and worse, notices fewer and fewer people say anything at all to the girl. And while it makes no sense for her to care, and even less sense to act on it, she feels almost a kinship with the broken merchant girl. She knows what it's like to lose someone that important, and every time she looks at Delly she can't help but think of losing Prim, knows that if it had been Prim who'd been reaped she herself would probably be falling apart. When Madge is absent from school, caring again for her ailing mother, Katniss sits beside Delly instead of sitting alone for lunch. The other girl looks quizzically at Katniss, it's the first time since the reaping that she's worn anything other than a dazed expression. Neither speaks, but Katniss pushes a bit of bread with goat cheese into Delly's hands and they both eat.

The next day Katniss drags Delly over to sit with her and Madge and the three girls eat together wordlessly. Days follow in the same fashion, but on the day the Games are set to begin Delly finally speaks to Katniss, asking her if they can watch together during mandatory viewing, and Katniss agrees.

They watch on the giant screens in the square, surrounded by a crowd of people more interested in enjoying the beautiful summer evening than in watching children kill each other. The Seam girl is killed in the first 20 minutes, during the bloodbath at the cornucopia, but Davey runs and hides and by the time mandatory viewing ends for the night he's holed himself up in a little cave by a stream. It's not the best hiding spot, but this early in the games he'll probably be safe overnight.

Delly's spirits are better the next day, and as Davey continues to defy the odds she seems more and more like the Delly of old; tentatively chatting with her merchant friends again and taking care of herself, though she continues to share quiet lunches with Katniss and Madge.

Ten days in Davey is bitten by a snake, and he dies lying on the riverbank in the mud, his sky blue eyes wide and his baby pink lips frozen open. He's the 15th tribute to die.

That night Katniss has a nightmare. Bad dreams are common for her, she's had them since her father died, but this one is different. She dreams she's in the Games, watching Davey die in the mud. Only in her dream it isn't Davey's golden hair and vacant blue eyes that stare up at her, it's Peeta Mellark's.

She jolts awake, heart pounding in horror and confusion. Peeta Mellark is a merchant boy, the baker's youngest son. They're in the same year at school, but they're not friends. In fact, they've never even spoken. Their one and only interaction was years ago when they were both eleven, a few months after her father died in an explosion in the mines where he worked. Her mother was locked in a deep depression, unable to care for her children and Katniss and Prim were starving to death. Katniss was slumped under an apple tree behind the Mellark bakery, in the pouring rain, waiting to die, when Peeta threw her two loaves of slightly burned bread. He hadn't said anything, but in the years since she'd thought about that day often, was almost certain he'd burned the loaves on purpose, for her, and had taken a beating from his mother because of it.

The bread, and the hope that he'd given her had saved her and her family. Many times over the years she'd wanted to thank him but the opportunity had never arisen.

She dismisses the dream as nothing; it's true that Peeta and Davey look similar with their merchant colouring, that's all it is. Still, she finds herself watching Peeta that day in school, and several times their eyes meet before one or the other looks quickly away.

Delly comes to school every day but she's shattered. She sits with Katniss and Madge at lunch though, and their quiet companionship seems to help her hang on. Katniss notices that the only other classmate who speaks to Delly is Peeta, who walks Delly home after school on days when he doesn't have wrestling practice.

The dreams plague Katniss, returning again and again, each time growing more vivid, more graphic, until the night she wakes Prim and her mother with her screams as she dreams that Peeta is dying on the riverbank, this time by her own hand.

She can't sleep after that, so she heads to the woods. Before the sun has even fully risen she's emptied and reset the snare line and picked a gallon of blueberries. It's a perfect summer day, but she's too distracted to risk staying in the woods. Before she even realizes what she's doing she finds herself standing at the back door of the bakery.

Usually when she comes to trade her squirrels for real bakery bread it's the baker who answers the back door but it's much earlier than usual today, and so it's Peeta's golden hair and shy smile that greet her. He offers to get his father, the first words he's ever spoken to her, but she shakes her head and thrusts a large cloth-wrapped bundle of berries into his hands, then turns and runs down the alley wordlessly.

She feels better after that, maybe a half-gallon of blueberries is a poor repayment for the bread that saved her family, and it's definitely 5 years too late, but it's something. She hopes it'll calm her guilt and take away the nightmares.

At school the next day Peeta approaches her before class starts with a determined look on his face and she panics, mentally assessing the ways she could run, but before she can move he's standing in front of her, pressing a muffin into her hands. It's fragrant, and still warm, and it takes every bit of her restraint not to shove it into her mouth right away.

"I can't take this," she says quietly, in a voice tinged with regret. "I haven't got anything to trade."

"Not a trade," he says with a shy smile. "I made them with the blueberries. From yesterday," he adds, as if he thinks she might have forgotten. She's speechless, and he walks away before she can stop him. She eats half of the muffin before heading to class, tucking the other half into her bag to give to Prim later, and it's the best thing she's ever tasted.

Peeta begins to join them for lunch, not every day but a few times a week. While he's outgoing and gregarious with his other friends he's quiet with them, but just his presence seems to help coax Delly out of her shell. As the days pass they speak a little more, the strange foursome, and Katniss learns that Peeta's and Delly's parents were childhood friends themselves.

Gale starts to work in the mines and he changes. They still meet in the woods on Sundays, it's the only day he doesn't work, but where they used to share a warm companionship, a brotherhood of sorts, things are now so much colder between them. Gale constantly berates her for spending time with her new 'townie' friends and she's bewildered; what difference does it make who she sits with at school for lunch? Gale doesn't even go to school anymore, and the small amount that she sees Delly or Madge or Peeta outside of school never interferes with her hunting. She still takes half of what the snares catch to the Hawthornes, even though Gale is down in the mines 6 days a week and can't help.

Davey's tiny coffin is delivered to the district on a rainy Friday, eight agonizing weeks after he left on the very same train, and Delly begs Katniss to come to the cemetery with her the next day. Katniss feels completely out of place, she's never been to a burial, there was nothing left of her father to bury after all, but she stands stoically as Delly clings tightly to her hand. Delly's father practically holds his wife up, while she stares vacantly at nothing. Katniss knows that look; it's the look her mother wore for so many months after Mr Everdeen died.

As popular as the cobbler and his wife had seemed, there are only a handful of mourners present. Peeta is there, standing still and silent as they watch the small coffin lowered into the ground. Katniss wonders why the baker and his wife aren't there, since they're friends with the Cartwrights, but she doesn't dare ask.

Sundays in the woods with Gale get more and more tense, even as the late season hunting itself improves. He's angry with her all of the time and she begins to dread the very place that had been her sanctuary for so long. On a cool misty morning she finally confronts him, and quickly they escalate to screaming, scaring away all of the animals for miles. He backs her into a tree and reaches for her; momentarily she's frightened that he's going to wrap his hands around her throat. Instead her cradles her face and presses his lips against hers.

She's never been kissed by a boy before, and while she's sure it should make some sort of impact on her all she really registers is the firm pressure of his mouth against hers, and the faint scent of soap that lingers on his hands. He lets go, backing away. "I had to do that, at least once," he says, then turns and leaves, and that's the last Sunday they spend together.

She knows he still goes into the woods, suspects he's set up new snare lines elsewhere, but their paths never cross. She thinks he's avoiding her, though she doesn't understand why, knows only that she's disappointed him somehow. He still trades at the Hob, Greasy Sae fills her in on what he brings and who he speaks with, but he never trades with the merchants in town anymore. It's as if he's divided their trade route cleanly in half, leaving her the town portion.

Once she's accepted that Gale is truly gone from her life she starts to bring Prim into the woods, not to hunt, the younger girl is far too delicate to hunt, but she's an excellent gatherer and her plant knowledge quickly improves. Katniss finds in these shared experiences that her relationship with Prim deepens, finds herself becoming less a parent to Prim and more a sister, a friend. The heavy cloak of responsibility that she'd worn since her father's death seems to lighten a bit.

When Katniss trades squirrels at the back door of the bakery now it's Peeta she deals with, instead of his father, and gradually they begin to talk to one another. Sometimes she brings him nuts and berries, not to trade, but just because she wants to and she likes how he smiles when she gifts them. She only brings him small amounts, handfuls really, so that he can't force her to take anything in return. And yet he always shares with her a small taste of what he's made with them; a slice of bread, a muffin, a biscuit. The back and forth is comfortable, and though she's still never thanked him for the bread all of those years ago she begins to feel like she doesn't owe him so much anymore. He still shows up in her dreams sometimes, in a dank cave or lying on the riverbank, but no longer dead, and she thinks that's a major improvement.

Summer fades into fall, and Delly gradually gets better, but Delly's mother does not. The last time Katniss catches sight of Mrs. Cartwright is when the train comes to town for the Victory Tour. Where the winner of the 74th Hunger Games, a career from District Two, can barely conceal his disdain at being forced to speak to the silent coal-stained crowd.

The evening of the first snowfall of the season Mrs. Cartwright passes away. The peacekeepers list the official cause of death as pneumonia, but rumours abound that she took her own life, having never recovered from the grief of losing her son.

Katniss begins to spend evenings now and again with Delly in the small apartment where she and her father live above the shoe shop, pungent with the smell of leather. She tries to keep Delly's spirits up and help fill in the silence of her half-empty home. She's surprised when on the cold, dark night of her second visit Peeta shows up as she's leaving, offering to walk Katniss home. She doesn't need his help, doesn't want to owe him anything else, but he doesn't take no for an answer. They don't walk together so much as Peeta chases her as she stomps to the Seam, but he's undeterred. After that he shows up every time she visits with Delly, to walk her home.

She confronts him, snaps at him that she doesn't need his help, that she can walk home just fine by herself but he merely smiles. "I know, Katniss," he says, flashing that shy smile that she secretly adores. "I want to walk with you. You're doing me a favour by allowing it." She rolls her eyes, but doesn't fight him anymore, doesn't try to run, and the cold mile between town and the Seam gradually fills with their conversations. By the time Yule rolls around they're making the walk mittened hand in mittened hand.

There are few celebrations in District 12, there isn't much to celebrate here and starvation makes for a poor party. But New Years is a mandatory celebration; giant screens fill the square as the Capitol broadcasts vapid propaganda while counting down to midnight. Peeta is busy in the days before New Year's Eve, decorating cakes that the wealthiest citizens will buy for their parties; the mayor, the head peacekeeper, a couple of others. Katniss generally spends New Year's Eve at home, watching the countdown on the static-filled old clunker of a television that occupies the corner of the living room, but Prim wants desperately to go to the square, and their mother is well enough this year that Katniss can't use her as an excuse to stay home.

The atmosphere in the square is exuberant, it's been a mild winter so far and there's a feeling of if not happiness exactly then contentment. People are suffering less this winter, people are less afraid of starving to death.

There's a bonfire leaping from a metal drum and a man selling hot spiced cider, somehow Mrs. Everdeen has a few coins to buy a cup for Katniss and Prim to share. The night is mild and just a few lazy snowflakes drift from the sky, twinkling in the light of the fire and the screens. Prim runs to her friends and their mother drifts away so Katniss stands by the fire, watching. Madge isn't there, the mayor hosts a New Year's party for the most prominent townsfolk. Delly too is missing, keeping an eye on her father at the close of their awful year. But Katniss doesn't mind the solitude; she's always felt most comfortable on the periphery.

A pair of fiddlers strike up a reel and Katniss can't hold back the small smile that plays on her lips as people begin to dance, all fast spins and joyful expressions. She doesn't realize that she's singing along until a soft voice speaks almost directly into her ear. "I remember the first time I heard you sing."

She spins abruptly to find Peeta standing so close to her that she can feel his breath on her ear, and she shivers, looking up to meet eyes that are little more than black pools in the darkness. "It was the first day of school, we were five," he continues. "At music assembly the teacher asked who knew the valley song and your hand shot right up. She stood you on a stool and had you sing for us. And I swear every bird outside the windows fell silent. And right when your song ended I knew I was a goner."

She wants to scoff, but the comeback dies in her throat at the look on his face, still shy, a little frightened but determined, and completely serious. Instead she squeaks out, "You have a remarkable memory."

"I remember everything about you," Peeta says, reaching down to tuck a loose strand of jet black hair behind her ear. "You're the one who wasn't paying attention."

"I am now," she whispers. He leans in close but pauses as if in question. Katniss is the one who closes the distance between them.

It's completely unlike the kiss she shared with Gale. She's struck by Peeta's immediacy, how she feels surrounded by him, aware of his hot breath on her cheek as it puffs unevenly from his nose, and the stirrings in her chest, warm and curious. Their lips separate, but they remain leaning into each other, her hands curled into the rough wool of his jacket, his hands resting lightly just above her hips, both with wide eyes and shy smiles. "I've wanted to do that for years," he confesses, lifting a gentle hand to cup her flushed cheek.

They break apart quickly when the raucous voice of Gale Hawthorne booms out from only feet away. "Catnip," he slurs, squeezing between her and Peeta and throwing an arm around her shoulders. He sways slightly and smells like white liquor.

"Gale?" she questions, stunned and confused. "Are you… are you drunk?"

He snorts, the sound like nothing she's ever heard from him before. "I prefer to think of it as really relaxed," he says, rolling the r sounds ridiculously. He's leaning on her now, having manoeuvred himself neatly between her and Peeta. "I never see you anymore, I miss you Catnip," he laments, loudly, and she cringes visibly.

"That's because you're avoiding me, Gale," she says quietly but there's an edge of hurt to her words. The last time she saw him he was screaming at her and then kissing her, and that was months ago.

"No, it's not like that," he moans, almost impossible to understand, and his glassy eyes hold both an apology and fire. He leans into her, maybe trying to hug her, she's not sure, but she twists out of his grasp and looks at him with furrowed brows.

"What's going on, Gale?" She means to be nonchalant but embarrassment wells up and her words come out sharply. His face hardens and his jaw tenses, and when his hands grip her shoulders firmly she lets out an inadvertent squeak of surprise.

Over Gale's shoulder she sees Peeta move towards them, she thinks he's going to pull Gale away but she knows that will set off Gale's temper, and who knows what he'd be capable of in this state. There are peacekeepers all around the square and the last thing she wants is trouble. She meets Peeta's eyes over Gale's shoulder and shakes her head, silently begging him to understand. He backs away wordlessly but his expression is sad and confused.

Gale is mumbling incoherently and almost falling over, and she knows if he stays in the square he's going to make a scene. She's still hurt by his abrupt dismissal of her from his life, but even still he's one of her closest friends and she needs to protect him. She tucks her shoulder under his arm and tells him she'll bring him home. Though she doesn't look back she can feel Peeta's eyes burning between her shoulder blades as she half drags Gale towards the Seam.

He mumbles as they walk, apologies she thinks though his speech is so garbled she doesn't understand most of it. Finally he becomes aware enough to drag her to a large rock by the side of the path, sitting on it and pulling her down beside him. It's a little smaller than the rock where they used to meet in the woods before each hunting day but the familiarity makes her heart pang. She's missed him, the Gale that was her friend, the Gale who made her smile.

"It's supposed to be us, Catnip. You and me. Not you and the baker boy." He's holding her hands and pleading, but she shakes her head in disbelief.

"We're friends, Gale, you and I. Best friends."

He moans. "No… We're more than friends Catnip. We belong together! You and me, we're gonna get married, gonna be happy."

Katniss bites her lip. She thought this might be where his thinking was going, but to hear it, even drunk as he is, makes her angry. He's the one who is supposed to know her better than anyone else. "You know I never want to get married, Gale. That's never been part of my plan. Marriage means kids and kids mean Reapings and…" He cuts her off, squeezing her hands painfully and leaning in close, the liquor fumes almost overwhelming as they push against her face.

"S'not stopping you from screwing around with the baker boy." He sneers and she jumps back, shoving his hands away, shock and revulsion forcing a flush into her cheeks.

"Peeta and I are friends, Gale, nothing more, and it's none of your damned business anyway!" She runs away, leaving him sitting on the side of the path, her mind whirling with rage. She can't abandon him entirely though, so when she sees lights on at one of the houses on the edge of the Seam she convinces the young man inside, one of Gale's crew mates in the mines, to drag him back. She doesn't stick around to watch.

Gale comes around the next day, sober, to apologize, but Katniss won't see him. She can hear him speaking with Prim but she hides in the tiny bedroom until Prim comes back to tell her that he's gone. She doesn't want to tell Prim what happened because Prim is twelve and she shouldn't know about boys and kissing and stuff, but Prim guesses much of what's happened anyway between being naturally perceptive and talking with Gale's younger brother Rory, who is her classmate. And when Katniss tells her what she told Gale about never falling in love and never getting married Prim only rolls her eyes.

"I saw you kiss Peeta, Katniss," she grins, pale blue eyes twinkling. "And I see the way he looks at you. The way he's always looked at you."

Katniss shrugs her sister off, and they move onto other topics of discussion.

Katniss expects Peeta to confront her at school or maybe to avoid her but instead they fall back into quiet joint lunches and walks from Delly's house to the Seam, as if nothing ever happened. She tells herself it's what she wants, that she has no room in her life to think about frivolities like boyfriends or love, but when she thinks of Peeta and that kiss she feels hollow.

The winter continues to be mild and hunting, while not plentiful, brings in enough to sustain Katniss, Prim and their mother. She doesn't see Gale at all. It's not that she avoids him, exactly, but she does the majority of her hunting in the early mornings before school, or on Saturdays and somehow there are always other things she needs to do on Sundays that keep her out of the woods. When Prim mentions she's heard Gale is dating someone all Katniss feels is relief.

The first day of spring dawns cool and wet, and they're informed at the beginning of class that there is mandatory viewing that evening. Some propaganda piece from the Capitol no doubt, they're not frequent, but they're not uncommon either. When Katniss and Prim tell their mother later that day she seems to know what's coming: the reading of the card. This summer's Hunger Games will be the 75th, and that means another Quarter Quell, a glorified version of the Games, with some even more horrifying twist. For the last Quell each district had to send four children. That's the Games that District 12's only living victor won.

Huddled around the television set in their tiny livingroom the Everdeen women watch as President Snow's snake-like face fills the screen and he reads.

" _On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels of how very small they are in the face of the Capitol's power, the male and female tributes will be reaped from only the pool of twelve year olds."_

Mrs. Everdeen makes a soft dismayed sound but Katniss and Prim hug each other fiercely. Safe for another year! They won't even be eligible for this year's reaping!

There are murmurs everywhere in the District, people grumbling under their breath about how barbaric it is to send 24 of the smallest children into the arena, the kind of seditious talk that normally only emerges from the mines seems to spread into households not only in the Seam but in town too. District 12 is so tiny there are only maybe 80 twelve year olds in total, and none will have more than a handful of slips in the bowls. For once the odds won't be tipped so strongly in favour of Seam children being chosen.

Among the kids on the other end of the spectrum, the 18 year olds who have essentially aged out of the Reaping 3 months early, there is jubilation. They keep the peacekeepers busy between cutting school and gathering after dark for bonfires and drinking.

On a perfect April morning with her gathering bag full of fiddleheads and morels Katniss slips back through the fence in the meadow to find Peeta waiting for her. In the months since the kiss they shared, they've settled into a comfortable companionship, maybe even a friendship, but it's still the first time she's seen him outside of school or her walks home after visiting Delly. She scowls at him in confusion, but he merely smiles, radiant as a sunbeam, and falls into step with her as she heads to the Hob.

She's surprised when he follows her into the Hob, not that Merchants don't occasionally come here, there aren't any other places to buy contraband liquor after all, but Peeta isn't like the world weary old men who sneak in shamefaced and afraid of being seen. He's wide eyed and curious, friendly with the vendors despite the wary way they regard him, even managing to charm Greasy Sae while Katniss barters.

After, he walks her to the Seam. Along the way he finally spills the reason he'd wanted to see her. "Mrs. Potvin came into the bakery yesterday," he starts. Katniss is familiar with the name, the Potvins are Seam folk, their two children are just a little older than Katniss. She shrugs, and he looks concerned, as if he'd expected more of a reaction from her. "She wanted to order a small Toasting cake. For Leevy…" he breaks off, still studying her face. Leevy is a year older than they are, she guesses that since the Reaping this year will only involve twelve year olds some of the 18 year olds are getting a head start on marriages and jobs. Finally he takes a deep breath. "For Leevy and Gale."

She's surprised, sure, not that Gale is getting married, she's always known that was in his plans, but that it's happening so quickly. And if she's being honest she's a little hurt that she's hearing it from Peeta instead of from Gale, who was her best friend for so many years. Still, the only thing that pops into her head is to ask what they wanted on their cake, and Peeta grins, looking oddly relieved.

"Candied violets," he says, then describes the cake he'll make for the couple; a small one, tiny really, scarcely big enough to be called a cake but still an almost unimaginable luxury for a Seam toasting. "Katniss," he says softly when the quiet has stretched between them. "What happened with you and Gale?"

She shrugs again. "I'm not really sure," she says. She'd rather not talk about Gale with Peeta, for some reason it feels like they are parts of her life that should be kept separate, but there's something in Peeta's expression that compels her to continue. "Everything was great until the last Reaping, we were best friends, we saw each other every day. And then we weren't."

"I thought you would be the one marrying Gale," Peeta admits, and Katniss stops, scowling at him.

"Gale and I were hunting partners, friends." she insists. "There was never anything else between us. There never could have been."

"He wanted there to be."

She studies Peeta closely, wondering how he can tell. "Yeah," she admits after a while. "I think he did. But I didn't."

The toasting is the following Sunday. Katniss isn't invited, nor does Gale stop by to tell her about it, but when the couple leaves the Justice Building hand in hand Katniss is lined up with the rest of their neighbours, singing the wedding song. Gale catches her eye and smiles as he walks by with his bride on his arm, and Katniss thinks that maybe someday they'll be able to be friends again.

Peeta is incredibly busy in the weeks that follow, the bakery receives a rush of orders for toasting cakes which fill his weekends from before dawn to dusk, and practices for the upcoming wrestling tournament take up his lunch period and what seems like every spare moment of his time. When Katniss does see him, at school for a few minutes at lunch, or walking between the school and Delly's house, he's more affectionate, giving her hand a gentle squeeze or stroking the glossy length of her braid, always with a warm smile and twinkling eyes.

Discovering the season's first rhubarb on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning in the woods reminds Katniss that she hasn't brought Peeta anything since the fall. She cuts and trims a bunch of the pink-green stems, and bundles enough for him to make a small pie or a few tartlets, but not enough that he'll insist on paying her. His smile when she gifts the tart stalks is radiant, but before she can dart back down the alley he grabs her arm.

"Katniss," he starts, and his voice wavers with nerves. "I finish at four today and I wondered if I could see you. Tonight." His words are ambiguous but she thinks she knows what he means, though she's tempted to play dumb and make him spit it out anyway, simply for the fun of watching him sweat. But he's looking at her with eyes wide and guileless and a streak of flour on his cheek, and she doesn't have the heart to make him squirm.

"Sure, Peeta." She smiles as his features flood with relief. His hand slides down her arm to grasp her hand.

"Will you meet me here, at five?" The hope on his face is unmistakable, and sweet.

"Okay." She smiles and squeezes his hand before darting back down the alley.

She should be terrified, she's sure Peeta has asked her on a date, and courting leads to things she's always sworn she doesn't want; love, marriage, babies. But she's strangely okay with it, well, with one date anyway. Maybe it was the mild winter that's left Prim's cheeks fuller than they've been in years, maybe it's the lack of fear of the Reaping, at least this year, or maybe it's something different entirely, but she's not afraid. Not much anyway.

She has to tell Prim of course, to explain why she won't be home for supper, and the younger girl's squeals of delight almost have her rethinking her plans. And while Katniss would have been content to just wash her face and wear her regular hunting clothes Prim won't have any of that. So Katniss has an unusual Saturday afternoon bath, even washing her hair with a precious egg yolk. After, they sit on the front stoop in the spring sunshine and Prim brushes through Katniss's hair, 100 strokes, until it's dry and hangs in a glossy curtain down her back. When Katniss reaches back to braid it Prim slaps her hands away. "Leave it down," she entreats, and Katniss seldom says no to anything her sister asks. She does, however, draw the line at wearing a skirt, but pulls on her nicest trousers, the ones without any holes or patches yet, and a soft grey tunic.

He's waiting in front of the bakery when she arrives that afternoon, sitting on the steps beside a large basket. The flour streak is gone and he's switched out the white t-shirt and khakis that make up his bakery uniform for a blue button down shirt and too-long dark pants that are obviously hand-me-downs from his older, taller brother. His golden hair is slightly damp, the waves combed carefully into place. She's struck, not for the first time, by how handsome he is. And seeing the care he's put into his appearance makes her grateful that she let Prim fancy her up a bit. His eyes widen when he catches sight of her, leaping to his feet as she approaches. He's breathless as he tells her that he can't remember ever seeing her with her hair down, and she blushes in spite of herself.

He picks up the basket and hand in hand they head for the meadow. They don't talk much on the walk, but Peeta keeps stealing shy, almost awed glances at her, as if he's not sure she's real. There's a tension between them, not anger but something hopeful and electric.

Once they're seated on a blanket in the dappled shade of a giant oak tree they both start to relax. Peeta's packed a meal in the basket, and the only thing that keeps her from being angry that he's feeding her is the promise that next time she can make dinner for them. His grin when she says next time threatens to split his face.

They smile and talk over hard boiled eggs, cold sausage and cheese buns, which are the most marvelous things Katniss has ever tasted, sharing a flask of cold tea between them.

The evening is unseasonably warm, almost balmy, and they linger in the meadow long after their meal is finished. Katniss gathers wildflowers and weaves them into a crown with her head on Peeta's lap as he plays with her hair. When his hands still she glances up at him warily. "What?"

"I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever," he says with a sigh, but his eyes are twinkling mischievously, and all she can do is smile and shake her head.

She sits up when the sun begins to paint the sky in swaths of orange and pink, and he wraps his arms around her, pressing her back snugly against his chest, her hips bracketed by his muscular thighs, and it's her turn to sigh as together they watch nature's light show.

He walks her home in the twilight, and on her front steps he leans down to kiss her again. Even though it's been nearly five months since that first kiss their lips move together with almost impossible familiarity. He pulls back far too soon and she has to force herself not to chase him. His smile says he notices. "I have thought about kissing you every single day since New Years," he whispers.

"Then why didn't you?" All of these months she's wondered. She thought maybe he'd regretted kissing her. He looks embarrassed.

"I thought you were with Gale, the way you left with him that night. I actually thought he would come by to punch me in the face for kissing you. I was a little afraid to open the back door of the bakery for a few weeks."

She snorts, an indelicate little noise of disbelief, then kisses him again before turning to her door. She pauses, hand on the knob and peeks at him over her shoulder. "It's always been you, Peeta," she says softly, then jogs into the house before he can reply.

The next day at school she lets him hold her hand walking between classes, and only barely notices how he's clearly favouring his left arm.

"Courting" doesn't change much. She still hunts, goes to school, takes care of Prim and spends time with Delly and occasionally Madge, but now when Peeta walks her home in the evenings he'll steal a kiss or two. They're reserved with each other at school, holding hands under the lunch table but not much more, neither ever says anything but they both have the impression that the other would like to keep their blossoming relationship private. But when Peeta has an odd weekend evening off they'll spend a couple of hours talking in the meadow over a picnic supper that either she packs or he does. And on those evenings they open up to each other in ways they've never opened up to anyone else.

Katniss is surprised to learn that the Mellarks are very nearly as poor as people in the Seam are. She just assumed that growing up around so much food he'd have always been well fed, but the truth is that most of their supplies go into the bakery, the family mostly eats the hard, dry loaves no one else wants. She silently vows to bring him more fresh foods while the woods are in full bloom.

Peeta admits to her that his mother has been harping at his older brothers to find wives now that they're past Reaping age, wives she would deem suitable matches of course, daughters of the wealthier merchants who can improve the Mellark fortunes. Rye, the middle brother, has already fallen into step with his mother's plans and is betrothed to the grocer's daughter, he began working at the Justice Building as a clerk when he finished school last year, and he helps out around the grocery too, which is why he's rarely in the bakery anymore.

Brann, the eldest brother, is an artist, which their mother hates, except when it benefits her. In plentiful times when they can afford to order marzipan from the Capitol, Brann sculpts incredible intricate little figures to sell to the sweet shop that's next door to the bakery. He used to carve little animals out of wood for Peeta when they were younger, but their mother insisted that Brann stop and dedicate more of his attention to learning the books for the bakery. Peeta admits that Brann hates the bakery, and has secretly been learning silversmithing from the town's blacksmith. Peeta has seen some of Brann's work; beautiful, delicate jewellery, but there's not enough business in District 12 to support a jeweller.

Peeta shyly admits that he dabbles in art too; he draws, and paints when he can get supplies. She's known since they were quite young that he's the one who decorates all of the cakes at the bakery but Katniss is curious to see his more permanent artworks.

She gets her chance on May 8th, her birthday. She hasn't really celebrated since before her father died, but Prim always makes sure to do at least a little something for her. She doesn't think to mention it to Peeta, but somehow he knows, and he catches her walking to school that morning.

He gives her a bag with six perfect sugar cookies inside, each painted with a different delicate flower. She knows cookies like these are expensive, and she wants to protest, but the words die in her throat when she sees the card.

He's painted their meadow, the tall oaks bordering a sea of lush green grass dotted with yellow dandelions and purple clover. It's so exquisite that she expects to see the long grasses waving in the breeze.

And inside he's written in his nicest handwriting the words to an old lullaby her father used to sing, one that she herself sometimes sings for Prim.

 _Deep in the meadow, under the willow_

 _A bed of grass, a soft green pillow_

 _Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes_

 _And when again they open, the sun will rise_

There's no way he could have guessed how special that ancient mountain air is to her, and it takes everything in her power to not dissolve into tears. Peeta looks alarmed when her eyes shine and her lip quivers.

She hugs him so fiercely that he's momentarily confused, but after a moment he wraps her in his arms, so strong and steady, and rocks her as she trembles with emotion. And on that quiet May morning something shifts in her heart. She feels certain that her father is giving her his approval.

...

Reaping day dawns grey and cool, and black rain clouds roll in as the day progresses. Katniss finds it strange to watch from the viewing area instead of from the pens in front of the stage where she's spent the previous 5 Reapings. The pens that hold the children look startlingly empty, only 88 in total and all of them so very small.

The tailor's little granddaughter is reaped, she's so tiny that she can barely make it up the stairs, and she cries the entire walk, huge tears running down her pink cheeks. A little Seam boy is reaped too, Katniss knows his family, they're neighbours of the Hawthornes'. As impossible as it is to imagine, he's even smaller than his district partner. Neither looks older than 10.

As they're forced to watch the recaps the same scene plays out district after district. Even in the career districts the tributes are small, and for once there are no volunteers in 1, 2 or 4.

The tribute parade is awful, the children are all so little they can barely be seen on their chariots, and more than a few cry the whole ceremony. The interviews are worse, one tribute sucks his thumb the entire time, another hides behind a pillow and refuses to talk at all. But nothing - nothing - could have prepared Panem for the horror of the 75th Hunger Games.

The arena is a brilliant blue sea surrounded by sandy beach and jewelled green jungle. Each tribute is balanced on a pedestal surrounded by water. When the horn sounds to begin the games the two tributes from district 4, the fishing district, dive into the sea. The other 22 children stand frozen and terrified. Most are openly sobbing. Twenty minutes into the games, 21 of the children are dead either having drowned or been taken out by the careers from 4. Only one other child, from district 2, manages to dog paddle to the shore and run into the jungle.

He's dead the next morning, electrocuted by the force field that surrounds them. As soon as his cannon sounds the 12 year old boy from district 4 kills his district partner, unceremoniously bashing in her skull with a rock while she sleeps, exhausted and delirious with thirst. The entire games had lasted 19 hours.

The mandatory viewing switches to Capitolites complaining, all garish colours and affected accents whining into the cameras until the broadcast ends abruptly.

There's an anger simmering in the district after the games, there is every year but this time the outrage is almost palpable. 23 of the tiniest kids dead for mere minutes of 'entertainment' that the people in the Capitol complained about anyway. Madge tells her in whispers that she's seen reports on her father's secure channel that several other districts are openly revolting.

After the games life in District 12 returns to normal for Katniss. Hunting is plentiful, Prim is becoming an accomplished gatherer and their mother's work doubles with the improved access to healing herbs. On a beautiful summer morning Katniss sneaks Peeta under the fence for the first time.

He is so loud!

He's so incredibly loud that she can't possibly get any hunting done, he steps on every twig and crackling leaf, trips over roots and bumps into stumps. And she's annoyed, but the look of absolute awe on his face makes her bite her tongue. He acts as if she's given him a priceless gift.

After that she takes him under the fence once a week. Hunting is out but she teaches him to set snares and his long artist's fingers prove remarkably adept at it. But his true calling is fishing, Peeta has patience in spades and can sit silently beside her for hours by the stream, catching a bounty of fish. He won't take any home though, she thinks he can't without explaining where he's been. But he helps her clean and dry and smoke their catches, and she puts enough away in the larder to feel good about the winter to come.

It's nearing the end of summer when she finally gathers enough courage to take him to her father's lake. It's a long, arduous walk but he never complains, as if he senses she's sharing something sacred with him. He's so still and silent when the lake comes into view that she worries he's disappointed, but a glance at his face proves otherwise. She's never seen him happier.

She wants to teach him to swim and is bewildered when he won't remove his shirt before he wades into the water, she hadn't thought him shy about his body. They splash and play together like children, and catch fish for lunch with rods she hides in a tiny abandoned cement shack perched on the edge of the lake. They lie together in the sun on a large flat rock to dry off and chaste kisses deepen, hands skim over cool damp skin, mouths and tongues map out throats and collarbones.

When his hands sneak under her damp camisole to stroke the slight swells of her breasts she keens, arching into him. His fingers pluck her taut nipples and she cries out his name. And when she so tentatively cups him over his shorts his moan makes her burn in ways she's never felt before.

They go no further, they're both shy and so innocent, but there is an electricity in the air around them, an understanding that when they're ready they'll cross that threshold together.

...

They make two more trips to the lake together before the fall. Peeta brings a sketchbook and pencils and she's fascinated watching him draw, how he gets this special look of concentration that hints of entire worlds trapped inside him.

She shoots waterfowl while he sketches, his stillness the perfect counterbalance to her stealth. And in the dim privacy of the little cement hut they explore each other; kissing, tasting sweat-soaked skin, caressing first over clothes and then bare sensitive parts. When she strokes him to completion for the first time, he collapses on top of her, panting declarations of his love into her shoulder. She doesn't say it back; the feelings are there but the words just are not.

If he's upset that she doesn't repeat it he doesn't let on. But he doesn't stop, whispering "I love you," into her hair or ear or mouth whenever the feeling strikes him. Which is often.

...

Rye Mellark gets married to Libby, the grocer's daughter, on a spectacular day in mid-October. The Mellarks spare no expense, and Peeta spends nearly a week crafting the multi-tiered toasting cake his mother demanded to impress the other merchant families. She has no regard for what the couple themselves might have wanted but Peeta consults with Libby extensively, so that she'll have something she loves too.

He sneaks Katniss into the bakery late one evening to see the finished product and she's stunned speechless. She knew he was talented, even has a few of his pictures pinned to the walls of the tiny bedroom she shares with Prim and their mother, but the cake is beyond anything she could have imagined possible. Layer upon layer of flowers, each so delicate and lifelike she can't imagine eating even a single one. When he shyly points out the Katniss flowers hidden among the roses and lilies she kisses him hard, right there in the kitchen.

Katniss is, of course, not invited to the toasting, though she knows Rye fairly well from school and her visits to the bakery. Only the wealthiest of the merchant families are invited, the ones Mrs Mellark wants to curry favour with. Katniss does catch sight of the happy couple leaving the Justice Building with their families. The smile falls from her face, however, when she sees Peeta. His cheekbone blooms with a fresh bruise, violet and black and blue and so painful looking. She knows it wasn't there when she saw him the night before. He pretends he doesn't see her in the crowd and she pretends she believes that he doesn't. When Delly asks him at school two days later about his injury he has an excuse so smooth that Katniss might have believed him if she hadn't seen an identical bruise on his face six years earlier.

The months that follow are worse and worse for Peeta. He deflects when she asks him what's going on but she can read him now, can see his misery. Even his art takes on a sad tone, noticeably darker. And their escapes together dwindle to almost nothing between the extra hours he has to put in at the bakery now that Rye is gone, and the snow that makes wandering the woods more difficult.

He comes with her to the Hob though, any chance he gets. It doesn't take long for the people there to accept him, he's so friendly and personable and down to earth. They're sharing a bowl of Greasy Sae's 'beef' stew (Katniss is certain it's possum this time, having brought Sae a pair of fat possums just two days ago) when Gale wanders in. It's been more than a year since she last saw him at the Hob, and many months since she's seen him at all. He's already starting to stoop, the way she remembers her father being hunched after each week in the mines, but his smile on seeing her is warm and genuine, and when he opens his arms she doesn't hesitate to walk into them.

Peeta greets Gale with a friendly smile and a firm handshake, and Gale shocks her by returning the greeting pleasantly. _'He's really grown up,'_ Katniss thinks. They exchange small talk, Gale fills them in on his life as a married man and the tiny shack they've been assigned. His wife, Leevy, is working as a seamstress and gradually sprucing up their tiny home, and they both continue to help support their families. Katniss thinks that Gale seems truly happy, for the first time in a very long time.

And when Gale bids them both goodbye he hugs her again and murmurs in her ear his acceptance of her choice and his happiness for her.

...

It's well after sundown on a bitterly cold night when Brann Mellark hammers on the Everdeen door, Peeta slumped against him, only half conscious and bleeding heavily from his head.

Mrs. Everdeen and Prim tend to their patient right away while Katniss looks on in horror. The wound itself isn't terrible, only needing six stitches, but they're worried about brain damage from the blow. When Peeta is stitched up and resting comfortably on the couch Brann explains in a low voice.

 _The tension brewing in the Mellark household had finally come to a head that evening as Peeta and Rye cleaned up the bakery after closing. Their mother, already enraged by Brann's refusal to court the Undersee girl after Mrs. Mellark worked so hard to get the mayor to agree to the match, turned her ire on Peeta. When his mother insisted Peeta take his brother's place as a suitor for Madge to cement the family's place in society he tried to explain, yet again, that he was already courting someone else. Neither Peeta nor Brann expects their mother to ever fully accept Katniss, but nor did anyone expect the rolling pin she threw at him from across the counter._

 _Brann doesn't know whether she was actually trying to kill Peeta or just to scare him, but when the heavy marble cylinder struck him in the temple he went down like a ton of bricks._

 _Brann half carried half dragged Peeta to the Everdeen house in the Seam. Rye took off to his home and his wife. Their father did nothing._

Brann steals away soon after, pressing a few coins into Mrs. Everdeen's hand. Peeta sleeps fitfully on the couch and Katniss sits up with him all night, clutching his hand tightly.

It's barely dawn when Mrs Everdeen examines Peeta again, he's achy and upset but it's clear no permanent damage has been done, at least not physically. She makes him remove his blood-stained shirt to clean it, and though he tries to shield himself with his arms and a thin crocheted blanket Katniss and Mrs. Everdeen catch sight of the various scars and half-healed bruises that litter Peeta's torso.

Mrs. Everdeen makes all three children hot grain with dried apples for breakfast, then retreats to the bedroom. When she returns Katniss is surprised to see her mother dressed in a soft blue dress from her merchant days, her hair carefully coiled into an elegant knot. She all but stomps out of the house, bundled against the cold and wearing the scowl that usually resides on her eldest daughter's face. The girls are shocked into stillness.

When she returns, angrier than Katniss has ever seen her, she insists that Peeta can't go back to the apartment over the bakery. Though food is scarce and they're barely keeping the three Everdeen women fed there's no question that Peeta will stay with them, and Katniss knows he must still be feeling terrible because he doesn't put up a fight. Katniss and Prim set up a pallet in the summer kitchen for him. It's cold in there overnight, even with extra quilts, but he never complains. He spends a couple of days in bed, recuperating; Katniss is reluctant to leave his side, only going to school and then running home afterward to be with him.

Katniss awakens before dawn on the third day that Peeta is with them to the sound of hushed voices and creeps out of the bedroom on silent feet. Rye is there, delivering to Peeta his few possessions, all of which fit into a dishearteningly small box. Clothing, school books, pencils and sketchpads, the only things Rye could sneak out of the house for his brother. Not a single memento of his family is in the box. Not a thing to suggest he was ever one of them at all. Katniss ducks back into the bedroom before Peeta can see her, and she pretends she can't hear his muffled sobs when he carries the box out to his pallet.

As soon as Peeta is deemed well enough to leave the house he heads straight to the Justice Building and signs up for tesserae. Katniss is livid, but he refuses to stay without contributing, however meager the extra oil and grain may be.

Katniss expects grumbling and gossipping at school and around town, after all it's pretty common knowledge that she and Peeta are courting, to have him now living at the Everdeen house should be scandalous, but there's scarcely a whisper. The few people who do say anything to her or to Peeta are positive and encouraging, Mrs. Mellark's atrocious treatment of her youngest son apparently wasn't as much as secret as Peeta might have hoped.

Peeta quickly proves his worth to the household, he's a phenomenal cook, turning their scant winter stores and tesserae grain into meals that are filling and taste good. He experiments with grinding the grains into a smooth flour and bakes up things Katniss could never have imagined; griddle cakes sweetened with a little honey, slippery noodles tossed with oil and garlic, even quick breads stuffed with bits of salt duck from the larder.

He's always cheerful too, up at dawn to cook or shovel snow with a smile, happy to help Prim with her homework or fix the broken steps or wash laundry in coal-warmed water and lye. Though life in the tiny Seam shack must be so different than what he'd been accustomed to above the bakery he seems to adjust easily and never grumbles or even seems to miss his old life.

More remarkable is the change in Mrs. Everdeen. Having Peeta there seems to spark something in her, she acts more like she used to before her husband died, even if she does occasionally refer to Peeta by his father's name. And while Katniss thought she'd never be able to trust her mother again she finds now that she's beginning to, at least a little. Their relationship will never be what it was, but it improves immensely.

Katniss still spends a couple of evenings a week with Delly, and one rainy evening on the cusp of spring Mr. Cartwright timidly asks Katniss if she'd be willing to help him with tanning a large hide. He does the tanning himself of some of the skins and furs that he uses to make shoes and boots because it's both less costly and better quality than what the Capitol will send. He explains that Delly is far too squeamish to be of any use in the rather gory tanning process, but he knows that Katniss is a hunter and when he's bought skins from Rooba he has seen the game she's shot and field dressed. He thinks she would do well, and of course he would pay her. Katniss is surprised, but intrigued, and agrees.

It turns out that Katniss is a natural, and in only a few weeks she's producing leathers that are softer and more supple than Mr. Cartwright, in his exhaustion and impatience, has been able to produce since his wife's death. She begins bringing the pelts of the game she hunts directly to him. She charges him far less than Rooba ever did, and Rooba herself is pleased to not have to skin the meat that Katniss brings to her anymore. Even Sae doesn't seem to mind the change. And the extra money helps make life in the Everdeen home a little easier for all four inhabitants.

When the snows melt away, Peeta and Prim build a tiny oven in the yard of the Everdeen house with bricks scavenged from old abandoned buildings around the mines. The first time he can rise before dawn to stoke the oven and bake bread for the day he's so happy he practically glows.

The arrival of spring means that Katniss and Peeta finally have a little privacy again. By unspoken agreement they've done nothing more physical than a chaste kiss on the cheek since he's been living in her house, out of respect for Prim and Mrs Everdeen. The first time they sneak under the fence together in the muddy and cold predawn they barely make it 100 yards before he presses her against a tree, kissing her like it's the only thing keeping him alive. Her response is equally fervent, and when he rubs his hardness so tantalizingly against her she wraps her legs around him and bites his shoulder hard enough that he'll have a new set of bruises to hide.

They go into the woods together nearly every morning and while there is often kissing and makeout sessions, they are also a serious hunting and gathering team. With the help of a plant book that has been in Katniss's family for generations, Peeta learns to identify edible roots, grains, greens, and berries, and he's more adept at managing the snare lines now even than she is. Katniss can dedicate more time to hunting, can spare more time to tracking the bigger game that brings in more money.

Peeta starts trading at the Hob. People there are used to him now, accustomed to his friendly face, and they accept bartering with him without much fuss. Katniss finds she enjoys watching him trade, behind the affable, sweet front is a surprisingly sharp negotiator with a quick mind.

They make a great team, together, and over the spring months they tuck away an impressive nest egg of coins and necessities. Neither mentions what their lives could look like after the Reaping, but she thinks about it constantly.

As Reaping Day draws nearer and nearer Katniss is more and more tense. She is convinced that Peeta is going to be reaped and it'll be all her fault because he had to take out tesserae. She begins to push him away, terrified of letting him see her fears, but he knows her too well. One morning he follows her pre-dawn escape, sliding under the fence on her heels and all but chasing her. She could easily outrun him but instead she turns and waits as he crashes through the brush, then wordlessly takes his hand and heads for the lake.

Their poles are still in the cement cabin, and it's not until they're sitting side by side, lines in the water, that she finally speaks.

"I never wanted to fall in love," she says softly, and he tenses beside her. She's never said 'love' to him before, not in all of the months he's been saying it to her. "I thought love made you weak," she admitted. "I saw my mother fall apart after my father died, become so despondent that she wouldn't even take care of her own children. I've always sworn that would never be me, Peeta."

She turns to face him. The rising sun catches his hair where the ends curl and crowns him in orange and gold. She can't help but smile. "You snuck up on me, Peeta. I didn't want to love you, but you gave me no choice." He turns to her, fishing poles all but forgotten.

"Katniss," he breathes, "I know you're afraid. I am too. But it's going to be okay. We're not going to be reaped. And I can't promise that bad things won't happen, but I can promise you that I'll be beside you all the way, that we'll handle whatever life throws at us together. I love you, and I'm not going anywhere."

"I know," she says softly, "I know, Peeta, I know. I just…" she sighs. "Don't let them take you from me. Stay with me, please."

"Always," he moans, taking her into his arms and kissing her with days of pent up longing.

They make love for the first time in the little cabin, on a blanket before the cold hearth. They're both innocent, and it's clumsy and awkward. She hasn't even adjusted to having him inside her body when he pulls out with a shout, spilling himself onto her stomach in hot sticky spurts. His whole body is trembling as he collapses half on top of her, pressing wet kisses all over her face and panting his love and gratitude, and she is certain that she's never felt closer to another human being.

And after, he tremulously whispers, "You love me, real or not real?" She kisses him breathless and tells him "real."

There are so many more peacekeepers at the Reaping this year, there's a tension to the crowd too, a feeling of anger simmering just below the surface.

Katniss is so certain that they're going to call Peeta's name that she doesn't even register who they do call. Only when Peeta and Prim have found her in the crowd and enveloped her in a tight hug does she allow herself to relax. It is over, at least for her and Peeta. They've survived. But the mood in the square around them isn't the relief of Reapings past. There's a low hum of dissent from the parents and spectators, they don't dissipate immediately but instead stay around the makeshift stage, some even calling out rebellious words as the peacekeepers begin to push the crowd back. Katniss and Peeta shuffle Prim away, they've never encountered open resistance to the Capitol's will before, it's frightening but it's also exhilarating somehow.

Peeta cooks a large celebratory meal that night, Hazelle and the younger Hawthornes join, and the evening is as close to a party as Katniss can remember. She's happy and relaxed, sitting on the threadbare couch with Peeta when Prim and Mrs Everdeen retire for the night. Once they're alone he turns to her with nervous eyes and blurts, "can we go for a walk? Together, I mean?"

"Sure," she acquiesces, but her heart is pounding. It's common, customary even, for courting couples in District 12 to get engaged after their final reaping, and she's terrified he's going to ask her now. Not that she doesn't love him, she does, deeply, and she's not even as dead set against marriage as she was years before, but she's by no means ready.

By the time they reach the meadow she's light-headed with fear and adrenaline. Peeta turns to face her and takes her hands in his own. She's shaking like a leaf as he wets his lips and takes a deep breath. "Katniss," he whispers and she holds her breath. "I'm going into the mines."

For many long moments she can only stare, her brain refusing to turn his words into anything understandable. "Huh?" is all she manages to say, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"I have an appointment to meet the foreman next week," he clarifies. "I should be able to start working there early next month." As comprehension dawns her anger rises.

"No," she says. "No, you don't belong down there, Peeta. You can't. Just, no." She shakes her head, still stunned, still barely comprehending what's going on. She rips her hands from his, wrapping them protectively around herself, scowling. This isn't what she was expecting at all.

"Katniss," he breathes, his hands gripping her arms. "We are eighteen now, the Reapings are finally over for us. We're finishing school at the end of the month. I..." He pauses and swallows hard, his throat visibly bobbing. "I want a future with you, and I can't do that unless I can earn a living. I can't take care of you without a job."

"No!" she screams, wrenching herself from his grip and he flinches. "You're not going down there, you can't!"

He takes a step towards her but her name dies on his lips as she backs away. "I have to, Katniss. Please understand."

"Understand?" she shrieks. "Understand? Oh I understand fine, Peeta. I understand you lied to me!" He recoils as if he's been slapped.

"Wha-what?" he stammers.

"You promised! You promised that you'd stay with me, always."

"I will," he protests. "I'll be by your side as long as you'll allow it, Katniss. I love you!"

"No! If you loved me you wouldn't do this!" She can't stay calm anymore, her anger transforming to hysteria. His eyes widen as tears began to course down her face. She has never cried in front of him before; since her father died she's never cried in front of anyone.

"Katniss," he pleads, his voice breaking. "Please, I've spoken with nearly every merchant in town, there's nothing else! I don't have any choice..." he trails off.

"This is why I never wanted to fall in love," she whimpers, and his face crumples. She's only told him that she loves him once, just that one time a couple of weeks ago. "You'll go down there and you'll never come back." She turns away from him and walks a dozen paces before slumping to the ground. Her sobs ring through the quiet meadow, desperate and heart wrenching.

Katniss senses him kneeling in front of her but resolutely refuses to lift her head. She moves an arm to cover her mouth, muffling the awful choking sounds that speak of her agony.

"Is this about your dad?" His voice is right in her ear, gentle and soothing despite the words. She wants to be angry at him for bringing up her father, instead she cries harder.

"He never came back," she whispers, then a fresh round of sobs prevents her from continuing as 7 years of repressed pain erupts from deep inside. She feels herself being lifted from the ground but her eyes stay squeezed shut. Peeta holds her on his lap, speaking soothing words, rocking her gently.

When finally she calms she raises her swollen eyes and tear-stained face. "Please don't go. I need you," she admits simply. His arms tighten.

"I'm sorry, I didn't think... I never realized..." He sighs. "I'll figure something else out, Katniss. I'll find another way."

"We'll find a way," she corrects. "Together."

They sit in the meadow, wrapped in each other, for hours. Comfort turns into gentle kisses that grow more heated. They make love under a million stars, slowly, starting and stopping and starting again, both trying to draw out their pleasure, their connection. This time when he pulls out to spill his seed it's because her orgasm has triggered his own. And after, when they're laying together in the meadow grass, half-naked, sticky and sated, Katniss whispers, "I want us to have a future together too." Peeta's smile is brighter than the sun.

Their 'another way' presents itself only days later. Greasy Sae suffers a stroke, and while it's a mild one, she can't run her stall, at least for the time being. It's Mrs Everdeen who makes the suggestion that Peeta run it until Sae recovers.

Even confined to bed Sae drives a hard bargain, she has to since she's caring for an orphaned granddaughter as well as herself with what money she can bring in from the stall, but eventually she and Peeta agree to a 65/35 share of the profits.

He's been around the Hob so much over the past year that no one blinks when he's the one preparing the soups and stews. He sticks to Sae's recipes... for about 3 days. Soon Katniss notices he's taking a list with him when they go foraging in the woods before dawn, and the specific herbs and greens he seeks out start to flavour his daily wares. The changes in taste don't make much difference in sales at first.

But then he starts offering breads.

He's been experimenting with grains since the winter, laboriously grinding them by hand in a mortar and sifting painstakingly to make surprisingly fine flours. Now that summer is here he searches out wild barley, buckwheat, amaranth and maize, which he grinds and mixes with precious wheat flour from the grocer. The evening he serves at supper fluffy rolls that are virtually indistinguishable from what the bakery offers Prim pipes up, "you should sell these at the Hob!"

Katniss nods thoughtfully but when she turns to look at Peeta, seated beside her at the tiny table that takes up most of the Everdeen kitchen, he's frozen, pain written clearly across his face.

Mrs Everdeen somehow reads the situation and knows the right thing to say. "You don't owe them anything, Peeta," she says softly. Katniss sighs in understanding; he doesn't want to take business away from the bakery.

They haven't spoken much about his parents in the 7 months since he left the bakery, battered and bruised, bleeding from his head. Brann is a fairly frequent visitor to the little Seam shack, Rye and Libby have come a couple of times too but there hasn't been a single word from his father, and Katniss knows that hurts Peeta terribly, they had been very close before his mother's last attack.

Mrs Everdeen leans across to pat Peeta's hand. "I felt the same way at first, when my parents were still alive and I was starting to do some healing work in the Seam." Katniss never met her maternal grandparents, they ran the apothecary in town but they disowned their only child when she ran off to marry a miner from the Seam. Both are gone now, having never reconciled with their daughter. "But my parents made their choice," she continues. "And that was just one of the consequences. Your parents made a choice too, Peeta."

He's quiet the rest of the meal, excusing himself as soon as the dishes are done to sit on his pallet in the summer kitchen, alone. He stays in there all evening, skipping mandatory viewing of the Games and not even coming out to say good night.

Late in the night Katniss climbs out of bed for a glass of water and sees candle light shining from beneath his door. She seldom goes into the summer kitchen, it's Peeta's space, they all respect that he needs a place that's his own. But tonight she pushes the door open.

He's awake, sitting by the windowsill that holds various cloth covered bowls containing his bread starters, staring out into the darkness. He turns when he hears the door creak but he doesn't look surprised to see her. His face is lined with dried tear tracks that shine silver in the candle's glow.

"Why didn't they love me?" Her heart breaks at his words, Peeta is so sweet and kind and giving, if anyone deserves to be loved and cherished it's him.

She moves into his room and sits on the edge of the pallet that's served as his wholly inadequate bed since Yule. He joins her, and she winds her arms around him as tightly as she can, wishing she could put him someplace safe where no one could ever hurt him again.

"I just don't know," she murmurs into his soft curls, bleached almost white by the summer sun. "But it's their loss, Peeta. You are the best person I've ever met, and if they can't see that then they don't deserve you anyway." Her voice is a fierce whisper, choked with emotion. "You're not alone, Peeta. We are your family now. Me, Prim, Mom, we all love you so much." He sniffles, and she guides him to lie down, blowing out the candle and then curling herself around him.

They fall asleep that way and when the first fingers of dawn streak across the sky they awaken wrapped up in each other. "I'm going to bring breads to the stall," he says firmly and she simply nods.

To call Peeta's baked goods a hit would be an understatement. He sells out every day, partly because he charges far less than the bakery does and partly because his clientele at the Hob are the folks his mother makes feel unwelcome in town. He keeps his offerings simple; soft rolls made from mixed grains, oatcakes, and dense hearty breads sweetened with molasses. Though he's perfectly capable of making cookies and cakes, Katniss thinks he wants to leave some things the exclusive domain of his family's business.

Within a month he's more than doubled the profits at Greasy Sae's and she offers him a 50/50 share. Katniss thinks Sae's motivation is fear more than generosity, if Peeta opened his own stall he'd take away most of her business. As Sae grows stronger she and Peeta share more and more of the prep work, which frees up time for him to bake more and their profits continue to grow.

The 76th Hunger Games last 8 long weeks, spanning almost the entire summer, as if the game makers are trying to compensate for the previous year's debacle. But the end result is the same as every year, a 'career' tribute wins, this time from District 1, and the Capitolites complain of boredom during the post-games television specials. Katniss hears whispers of rebellions in the other districts but nothing happens in 12. They're just too small she thinks.

Katniss still tans leathers for Mr Cartwright, and he begins to teach her a little about shoe making. She's pretty good at that too, her arms are strong from years of using a bow and she understands how the leathers bend and stretch from having spent so much time skinning and tanning. Soon enough she's happily working a couple of days a week repairing shoes while Delly tends the front shop.

It's during a quiet day in the shoe shop that Delly excitedly gives her news. Things are getting serious with Weston, the florist's son, who Delly has been dating since school ended. She thinks he's going to ask her to marry him any day.

Though she's not physically demonstrative by nature, Katniss hugs her friend and congratulates her wholeheartedly. Delly has had a tough two years, losing her brother and mother, and watching her father bury himself in his work. She deserves to be happy. So Katniss smiles and nods as Delly waxes poetic about the flowers she hopes to have for her toasting. When she says she wants Peeta to make her cake, instead of the bakery, Katniss grins.

She realizes that she's lost the thread of the conversation when she hears Delly mention Peeta's father. "Sorry, what?" she says.

"I wondered if Peeta had made up with his father yet?" she repeats, and Katniss scowls. Delly hurries to explain. "It's just that Mr Mellark was so nice when we were young, he used to make us little dough boys and girls to play with and I know Peeta was his favourite."

Katniss fights to keep her temper in check, not entirely successfully. "It's been more than nine months, Delly and he hasn't once checked up on his 'favourite son'. Hasn't once visited, hasn't once made any attempt to speak to Peeta at all. That's not how you treat your own child! That's not something a 'nice' person would do!" Delly nods at Katniss's impassioned speech, flushing, and lets the subject drop. All is quiet in the shop.

After a while Delly turns to Katniss, her blonde brows furrowed. "Why aren't you and Peeta married yet?"

Katniss sighs, the easy answer would be 'because he hasn't asked me,' but it wouldn't be the whole truth. "You know that the stall Peeta is running isn't technically legal, right?" The Hob is a black market, officially it's prohibited to sell anything in the districts without an expensive license from the Capitol, but the peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the rules. Most of them are fairly frequent clients at the Hob, a peacekeeper's salary isn't much after all.

Delly nods. "So?" she questions.

Katniss stares at her hands uncomfortably. "Well they won't assign us a house unless one of us has a proper job," she admits. Hunting and selling in a black market aren't exactly the kind of jobs they could report to the authorities, so on paper she and Peeta are both unemployed dependents of Mrs Everdeen, despite the fact that they supply most of the household income. And marrying without being assigned a home of their own would be awkward, impossible really, given they share a little single bedroom shack with her mother and sister.

"Oh," Delly breathes, pouting sympathetically, but Katniss is spared whatever well-meaning platitude Delly might have offered when Mr Cartwright returns from an errand. Katniss tells herself it's better this way anyway, being prevented from marrying, though she's not as convinced of that as she used to be.

Delly is right; Weston proposes on the first of November. For the first time in a long, long time the little apartment above the shoe shop is filled with joy. Katniss and Peeta are having supper with the newly engaged couple and Mr Cartwright when Delly asks Peeta to make her cake. He beams, "Of course, Dell, I'd be honoured!"

Peeta is like a man possessed, searching out alternatives for the supplies that are common in the bakery but close to impossible to buy elsewhere. Katniss helps him crush berries and boil roots to make dyes for frosting and they all eat a lot of cake as he experiments with recreating the ultra fine cake flour that's essential for a good cake. But it's Brann who provides the final ingredient, sneaking a bottle of glycerin from the bakery for Peeta's fondant.

As the day approaches the ice box in the Everdeen kitchen is overrun by cake decorations. Peeta meticulously handcrafts dozens of perfect gum paste leaves, delicately hand painting each in shades of red, orange and yellow. When he assembles the two tiers and arranges the leaves to look like the forest floor Katniss is certain she's never seen anything more amazing.

Delly and Weston are married at the Justice Building on Saturday morning, and Peeta and Katniss follow them through the streets of town to the florist's house, where Peeta's cake will be served to guests who mingle under tents in the florist's extensive gardens, dormant for the year but still stunning. The actual toasting will be a private affair, held the first time the happy couple enter their newly assigned house, as is customary in District 12.

Though the majority of the merchant class shows up, Peeta's parents are conspicuously absent. Delly confesses it's because she told her new inlaws that they could have the Mellarks at the party or they could have Delly, but not both. "You're my oldest friend, Peeta," she says shyly and he hugs her hard, tears in his eyes.

...

Katniss continues to help Mr Cartwright, making and mending shoes and tanning leather, and gradually over many weeks she takes over more and more of the shop duties.

On a quiet morning just before spring they're working side by side when Mr Cartwright announces with no fanfare that he would like Katniss to officially become his apprentice. She's shocked; she loves working with him, his personality meshes well with hers and she genuinely enjoys the work, but it never occurred to her that it could possibly become something permanent, something real. An official apprenticeship would pretty much guarantee that she would take over the shoe shop when Mr Cartwright retired or died.

They file the paperwork at the Justice Building that very afternoon.

When she returns home she finds only Peeta there, Prim and Mrs Everdeen having left to help with the birth of a baby elsewhere in the Seam. Peeta has dinner already on the table, and he tries to make small talk, but Katniss is distracted and fidgets all through dinner. She's a terrible liar and secret keeping is difficult for her. Once the dishes are dried Peeta turns to her with a wary smile.

"Care to share what's on your mind, Miss Everdeen?" His tone is light and teasing but she can tell he's nervous. She grins, and rushes over to her game bag, leaving him confused.

When she places the papers in his hands he reads them first with a puzzled expression, then with a smile spreading across his face as comprehension dawns. "Katniss," he breathes, "Oh my goodness Katniss, this is incredible! Congratulations!" He picks her up and spins her wildly as she laughs.

"You're not upset that I signed them without speaking to you first?" she asks after they've kissed long and hard and are breathless.

"No, of course not, Sweetheart, this is an amazing opportunity for you!"

"For us," she corrects. "Do you know what this means, Peeta?" He shakes his head, smiling down at her, reflecting back her excitement even though he only understands half the reason. She screws up all of her courage before replying.

"They'll assign me a house now, all I have to do is ask." His eyes widen, as if he's afraid, but he says nothing. Katniss realizes that he thinks she's going to leave him, and her heart clenches.

"We could have a house of our own now, Peeta. Together. I mean, if... if you want to, you know..." She trails off awkwardly, Peeta is still frozen, like a deer staring down the line of her arrow. She sighs, a frustrated noise in the quiet of the shack. She's never been a good communicator, that's Peeta's specialty, and right now he's been rendered utterly mute by surprise. At least, she hopes it's surprise, and not horror.

She sucks in a deep breath, forcing herself to hold his eyes. "Marry me, Peeta," she says quietly. She can see the moment when it all finally clicks for him, his eyes start to shimmer with tears, and before she can say anything else he surges forward, kissing her, hands caressing her face, her hair, anywhere they find purchase.

In between kisses he murmurs over and over, "is this real?" and she laughingly assures him it is. With a whoop he scoops her up and carries her back to his little sleeping area, laying her on the pallet, peeling back the layers of her clothing reverently and worshipping her body with his mouth.

When his tongue touches her centre she forgets to worry that her mother or Prim could walk in at any minute and simply surrenders to the ecstasy he raises, her hands twisting in his curls.

After he's made her fall apart twice with his hands and mouth he slides into her waiting heat. As he moves in her he pants confessions in her ear, how he's wanted to marry her since he was five and he first heard her sing, how he's been in love with her longer than he's known what that meant, how she's starred in every fantasy he's ever had.

Much later, when they're lying entwined; sticky and sweaty and utterly spent, she says softly into the dark, "Was that a yes?" and he chuckles.

"A thousand times yes."

...


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn't mean to fall asleep but when the sun hits her face she's still curled up on Peeta's pallet, the scent of him, and of them, enveloping her. Peeta, however, is nowhere to be seen. She can hear low voices - his and her mother's - and the clatter of teacups coming from the kitchen, just beyond the door. Hurriedly, she dresses and sneaks out into the yard, walking around outside to re-enter the house from the front. Her mother will know that she didn't sleep in her own bed last night, but she'd still rather not advertise that fact.

When Katniss walks through the door Mrs Everdeen turns and beams at her. Katniss shoots Peeta a questioning look, but he merely smiles beatifically, and she has to resist the urge to grin just as goofily at him. Her future husband.

"Peeta asked me for your hand in marriage," her mother says, breaking Katniss out of her daydreaming. She turns, shocked, to face her mother, but before she can protest Mrs Everdeen continues. "I told him it wasn't mine to give." She smiles gently at her eldest daughter. "You're an adult, Katniss, independent and strong, and you've been your own woman for a long time." She reaches out tentatively for her daughter, and Katniss moves into her arms. They haven't shared many affectionate moments since her father died, despite having grown closer in the time Peeta has been with them, but they hug each other hard now. "I'm proud of you," Mrs Everdeen whispers.

"I love you, Mom," Katniss replies, the first time she's said it in eight long years.

Peeta insists on asking for Prim's blessing too, and her squeals can be heard across the Seam.

Merchant weddings usually involve a lot of guests coming to the home of the groom's or bride's parents for cake, Seam marriages are generally celebrated with only a small shared meal between the two families and maybe a couple of close friends. All that's legally required is a trip to the Justice Building to sign some papers, but no one in District 12 really feels married without a toasting, when the newly married couple builds a fire together in their new home and toasts a bit of bread. It's an ancient ritual, passed down through the generations, one of the few that remain from before the dark days.

Peeta has been living in the Seam for well over a year but he's still a merchant down deep, and a baker at heart, so Katniss doesn't try to dissuade his plans for a grand cake to share with the community. Unlike a merchant wedding however, he proposes that they celebrate in their meadow.

They set a date for two Sundays hence. Sunday is the only day the mines are closed, and many of their friends and the people that Peeta has gotten close to in the Hob are miners.

Rye and Brann are thrilled for their little brother, Brann volunteers to help with the cake, while Rye offers up his own kitchen for the preparation.

Delly promises a bouquet of flowers for the bride, and Mr Cartwright gifts Katniss a new pair of fine leather slippers to wear with her dress. They're far too fancy for her but she hasn't the heart to disappoint Mr Cartwright, who seems almost as happy for Katniss as he was for Delly. And she knows that Prim will be able to wear them too, after.

The dress itself is rented from the tailor, one of only four that nearly every bride in the district chooses between, based on size. It's probably been worn a hundred times, but Prim tacks on ribbons and lace, and it looks like something completely new. She keeps it hidden in the bedroom, insistent that Peeta not see it until the big day.

Katniss sees little of her fiancé in the week leading up to their wedding day. She works five days a week at the shoe shop, he works six at the Hob and virtually every spare minute he has he's at Rye's house, creating a confectionary masterpiece. She waits up for him one evening, three days before they're to be wed. Peeta finds her on the front steps, bundled against the spring chill in her father's hunting jacket, clutching a flask of hot tea. He seems to sense her mood and drops onto the stoop beside her. For a time they simply sit in silence, passing the flask back and forth. Finally she gathers her courage and speaks.

"I don't want children," she confesses, unable to look at Peeta. "I know you do, and you deserve a whole gaggle of little blond babies to spoil with cookies and shower with love. I can't give you that, not as long as there is the Reaping hanging over them. I'm so sorry, Peeta. I.. I understand if you want to find someone else, someone who can give you everything you deserve." She reaches the end of the speech she's been practicing for days and bites her lip hard against the tears that threaten. She loves him too much to trap him in an unhappy marriage.

She's afraid to look at his face, to see his anger, his disappointment. So she stares at her feet until a large hand gently but firmly tips up her chin. His expression isn't angry, though. He almost looks amused. "Do you really think I didn't know that, Katniss?" He smiles then, and strokes her cheek. "We've been together for two years, and I've loved you for most of my life. I know you. And yes, I'd like to have children, but only if it's with you. I want you so much more than I want kids. What we have is enough for me, and you're so much more than I deserve." She moves to argue but he stops her with a kiss. "I'm so happy, Katniss. You make me so happy. If children ever came into the picture it'd be wonderful but if it never happens I'll still be the happiest man in Panem. Because of you. You're all of my dreams come true." It's sappy, and a little silly, but Katniss beams anyway.

Peeta spends the night before the wedding at Rye's house, at Libby's insistence; apparently there's an old Merchant custom that seeing the bride before the wedding is bad luck. Katniss thinks it's hogwash, but it does give her an opportunity to meet with Brann early that Sunday morning, before the spring sun has even crested the horizon. He doesn't ask why Katniss wants his help baking such a specific loaf of bread and she doesn't offer any explanation. She knows Peeta will understand, that's all that matters.

And when it comes out of the little brick oven in the Everdeen yard with the crusts slightly charred she knows it's even more perfect.

Prim fusses all morning, it's the first wedding she's ever been invited to and she seems determined to make everything perfect, hardly giving Katniss a moment to herself. By the time Mrs Everdeen sends her younger daughter out to collect wildflowers for her sister's hair, Katniss is a nervous wreck.

In the few moments of stolen quiet while Prim is gone, Mrs Everdeen calms and soothes her eldest daughter, tentatively sharing the kind of maternal insights that have been so lacking in their relationship over the years, and Katniss reflects on how much has changed since Peeta came into their lives.

Prim and their mother braid two small sections of Katniss's hair, crowning her with the ropes and leaving the rest of the raven locks to cascade freely, knowing how Peeta loves her hair down. They weave wildflowers through the strands; Queen Anne's lace and clover and rue and dandelions. Lots of dandelions.

She even tucks a few of the sunny yellow blooms into the small bouquet of white carnations Delly brings her. She wonders if Peeta knows that she's associated him with dandelions since they were children, since the day after he saved her with the bread, when she saw the first dandelion of spring in the schoolyard.

Each time her nerves threaten to get the best of her she looks at them, tucked into her bouquet, crowning her little sister's golden head, lining the path to town, and she's reminded of the boy with the bread. Peeta is her dandelion in spring, bringing her hope, reminding her that life can be good.

Peeta is standing on the steps to the Justice Building when she arrives, flanked by both of his brothers, waiting for her. He's wearing a crisp new shirt, pale blue, much like the one he wore for their first date. She thinks he's even more handsome now than he was that day. The years have been kind to Peeta, sculpting his jaw and broadening his shoulders. He's no longer the shy boy who was so afraid to talk to her; he's a strong, confident man now. And soon he'll be her husband.

When he sees her approaching his face lights up, awestruck. She can't contain her grin as she runs the last few feet to stand before him. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he gasps, stroking her loose locks with a shaky hand.

"You don't look so shabby yourself, Mellark," she tries to joke, but her voice sounds breathy and giddy. He laughs.

"Still want to do this?" His question is lighthearted but she can see the genuine worry. She grabs his hand and tows him towards the door in response.

Katniss has only been inside the Justice Building once before, when her father died and she, as the eldest child, was awarded the medal of valor on his behalf. But marriages take place in a different section of the building, so she's able to push those unhappy memories away, and focus on the man standing beside her.

All is silent as the clerk pushes paper after paper across the narrow desk, and with nothing more than a few flourishes of a pen Katniss and Peeta are officially wedded by the laws of Panem. Their first married kiss tastes like equal parts joy and relief.

Mrs Everdeen snatches up the thick envelope that contains the address and keys for the house assigned to the newlyweds; it's customary that the family sneak in before the couple gets there to set things up. Then the happy group leaves, exiting into the bright spring sun.

The path is lined with people singing the traditional District 12 wedding song. Merchant and Seam, blond and dark heads both raise their voices in celebration. Katniss finds herself overwhelmed by the outpouring of affection, she's never thought of the district as a place that cared about her until this moment.

There's almost a carnival atmosphere in the meadow as people file in, having followed the bride and groom, singing and laughing the whole way. Peeta's brothers set up tables and cover them with treats; cookies and squares, a rare treat for so many of the Seam folk in attendance. And then they bring out the cake.

Katniss has never seen such an enormous cake in her life, could never have even dreamed one. And yet, even though it's massive, it's so perfectly simple. Instead of the stacked tiers that are popular with the wealthiest merchants it's a single layer, rectangular, easy to cut and to share.

But it's certainly not plain. Peeta has painstakingly recreated the meadow in cake form.

On a layer of green frosting he's arranged at least a hundred gum paste wildflowers; clover and buttercups and even dandelions. It simply couldn't be more perfect. She can barely fathom how much work he's put into it. And though she's not one for public displays she stretches up on her toes to kiss him soundly.

There's music and dancing, virtually everyone they know makes an appearance. Gale comes with Leevy; Weston, Delly and her father; Peeta's brothers and most of his childhood friends. Even Sae and her little granddaughter twirl together. The hugs and handshakes are nonstop.

Though his smile never once falters, Katniss catches Peeta several times looking towards town for the two people who don't show up.

When the party dies down they slip away to their new home. Katniss is a merchant now, so they've been assigned a house in town, but Rye must have pulled some strings because their new dwelling is on the very edge of town, right at the path that leads to the Seam. Fitting for a couple whose lives straddle both communities in so many ways.

Town homes, while tiny, are palaces compared to the shacks in the Seam. But Katniss barely notices the larger living room, the separate kitchen, the bathroom with a real bathtub. All she sees is the fireplace, a tiny bundle of kindling on the hearth beside a white linen wrapped lump - the bread she baked that morning. The papers at the Justice building, the party, the cake, none of those things are as real as the scene before her. The enormity of it leaves her breathless.

Peeta's eyes never leave his bride. He's uncharacteristically silent as Katniss lights candles. The electricity is off, as usual, and the sun has nearly set. Once the room is aglow she turns to him, holding out her hands. His eyes are like saucers as he takes in the sight of his wife in her wedding dress, bathed in candlelight. They stand in front of the cold fireplace for many long moments, just staring, admiring. Finally with a shuddering breath Katniss asks, "ready?"

Peeta's a whiz with fires, expertly laying the kindling and coaxing the flames into a roaring blaze, filling the room with warmth and light.

They kneel before the hearth, hands clasped tightly together, both trembling with nervous anticipation. She's about to reach for the bread when Peeta stops her. "I wanted to give you something first," he says softly, releasing one of her hands to reach into the pocket of his shirt. "I know it's not customary in the Seam, but I was hoping…" he trails off, and Katniss's breath catches. The firelight bounces off the object in his hand. A ring, a wedding band. She's seen them before, Mrs Undersee wears one, but it's an extravagance a poor girl from the Seam could never have dreamed of wearing herself.

He lifts their joined hands and reverently slides the thin silvery band onto her finger; it's a perfect fit. It's not a plain band, as she first thought, but three slender cords, braided together. Made by Brann's hand, she has no doubt. Peeta must have been saving up for it for months, for far, far longer than their fortnight engagement. He answers the unspoken question in her eyes. "I've been waiting for this day practically my whole life, Katniss. I've always believed we would get here, that no matter what…"

"This would have happened anyway," she finishes for him, and his smile is dazzling in response.

Peeta reaches for the bread then, and she holds her breath. Baking this loaf had seemed so fitting, but compared to the gift he's just given her it feels silly now. She watches as his brows furrow; the slightly charred, dense loaf isn't what he was expecting of course. The bakery sells tiny loaves of fine white bread for toastings, and she knows that's what he'd asked Brann for.

"I baked it," she whispers, and his eyes snap up, filled with awe. She takes one end of the loaf and together they break it apart. His eyes widen when he sees the fruit and nuts inside. "Do you remember?" she asks, and he nods. "I never even thanked you."

"You never needed to. I never expected anything."

"I know," she rushes to reassure him. "You saved my life that day, Peeta. Mine and Prim's and my mother's. But it's more than that. You gave me hope. You… you helped me to see that life could be good again." She shuffles forward awkwardly, until her face is just inches from his. "You're still doing that. Every single day. Your kindness, your steadiness, your love. I never knew I could be this happy."

Her confession may be disjointed and rambling but he understands, and the bread lies forgotten in his lap as he cups her face, kissing her with barely restrained passion. "Let's do this," he groans when finally they break apart, "so I can make love to my wife."

There's no protocol to a toasting, no rules to follow or speeches to recite, though most couples say at least a few words. Kneeling together, forehead to forehead, sharing bites of life-sustaining bread, toasted in their marital home by their own hands, the only words that pass between them are hushed declarations of love and devotion. When every bite has been enjoyed he kisses the crumbs from the corners of her mouth and then carries her into the bedroom.

They undress each other with sure hands, caressing and complimenting, each touch an affirmation of their commitment.

They've never made love in a bed before, and the squeaking of the springs makes Katniss giggle. But her laughter cuts off sharply when his thrusts increase in power and speed, the banging of the iron headboard against the wall drowning out the squeaks. The raw passion on his face, the intensity in his eyes, his love that surrounds her and fills her as he claims her, she's never felt so certain. Never felt so safe.


	3. Chapter 3

Together, they make the small house on the edge of town into their own. Peeta's paintings and drawings decorate the walls, framed in bits of bent wood and admired by everyone who visits. Pots of herbs and glasses of wildflowers line the windowsills. Warm and welcoming. Happy. Home .

Married life isn't much different than the way things were before. They cook together and laugh together, hunt and gather together on Sundays, best friends and lovers both. But the privacy they now enjoy allows them to act more freely on the mutual attraction that crackles between them, any time they want. Every time they want.

And though he's careful to pull out every time, there are a few occasions that are just too close for comfort. When Katniss approaches her mother a few weeks later, the tincture of Queen Anne's lace and pennyroyal is already waiting.

o-o-o

As Reaping day approaches, her nightmares come back. They'd never gone away completely, but in the months since their toasting, in the months they've been sharing a bed every night, they've been almost nonexistent. But it's the first Reaping that Prim will stand for where Katniss wouldn't be able to take her place. And while Katniss has never actually thought about volunteering before, since volunteering is rare outside of the career districts, she's terrified now that the possibility has been taken away.

Peeta holds her and calms her, no matter how many times she wakes him, but the nightmares don't slow again until Reaping day is over, and Prim is safe. When Katniss haltingly explains to him that this is why she can never have children he simply holds her more tightly. She knows it saddens him, though he never tries to change her mind. He always tells her she's the only thing he needs.

Just weeks later, Libby and Rye announce they're expecting a child.

Peeta seems overjoyed by the news, but Katniss can see the disappointment he tries to keep from her. It lurks deep in his summer blue eyes. The knowledge that it'll never be him.

Babies with shining blonde curls and solemn grey eyes join her nightmares, reaped and slaughtered while she watches, powerless to protect them.

o-o-o

Brann takes to spending evenings with Peeta and Katniss in their cheerful little house, to escape the tension at the bakery. He admits that since Rye and Libby's pregnancy announcement, his mother has been relentless in her pressure to get him married off too. To get Brann saddled to a wife who could take over some of the bakery duties. Caring nothing for his own wishes, as usual. Katniss senses he's getting close to his breaking point. But they both enjoy his company, his companionship, and Katniss feels good offering him a safe haven from the hell of his life, if only for a short time. And Peeta admits he feels closer to his eldest brother now than he ever did growing up.

On a moonless Saturday evening late in the fall, Katniss and Peeta are working side by side in their kitchen, turning the last of the apples she's foraged into sauce, when there's a heavy knock on the door. Both know without looking that it's Brann; he spends virtually every moment he's not needed in the bakery either at their home, or with the blacksmith.

He's in a rare good mood, and joins his brother and sister-in-law in their tiny kitchen, the three work together comfortably. Katniss can tell that Brann has something to tell them, he's practically vibrating with barely constrained excitement.

He doesn't make them wait long. "Starting Monday, I'll be officially apprenticed to the blacksmith," he says, eyes still on the cooked apples he's mashing. "I signed the papers today."

Katniss crinkles her nose in confusion. "What about Brett," she asks, referencing the blacksmith's son, who has been Brann's best friend for years and who would have been the logical choice to take over his father's business.

"We'll run the shop together," Brann says, a shy smile playing on his lips. "I picked up my housing assignment this afternoon too." Being officially apprenticed to a merchant entitles Brann to a house of his own, in town.

"Is there enough business to support another household," Katniss asks. The blacksmith's wife is long gone, but it seems a stretch to imagine that they can make enough hinges and nails to support two young men and their future wives and families.

"There's enough for one family," he says, his smile wide.

"For real, finally?" Peeta asks, grabbing Brann by the shoulder, and at his nod the brothers are embracing. Katniss watches, basking in their happiness but bewildered.

When the men break apart they both look at Katniss expectantly, then Peeta breaks into laughter. She bristles. "What's so funny?"

"Brett and I have been dating for years," Brann explains gently, pushing his brother aside. "His father knows, but we've kept it from my parents. But now we are ready to make it official." Katniss hugs her brother in law tightly.

"Have you told them yet?" Peeta's voice floats over them and she feels Brann tense.

"No," he sighs, pulling back to regard Peeta sadly. "But we both know what Mother's reaction will be. I'm going to sneak as much of my stuff out of the apartment as I can tomorrow, while she's playing bridge. Then I'll tell them." The brothers share a look of understanding, and as always, Katniss's heart breaks for all that these kind young men have lived through at the hands of the people who should have protected them always.

"We're going to have a toasting, next Saturday. Will you come?"

Same-gender marriages aren't recognized in Panem, at least not in the districts. The Capitol only grants licenses to partnerships that could produce offspring, produce future workers and future entrants for the Games. It's a sad, sick system. But marriage in District Twelve has never really been about the paperwork anyway. It's the toasting that counts.

"We wouldn't miss it," Peeta enthuses with a glance at Katniss and she nods.

Brann and Brett's toasting day is rainy and cold, but their new house, not far from Rye and Libby, is warm and bright and filled with love. Friends and loved ones crowd together to sing the wedding song and enjoy a bite of cake, the blacksmith makes a speech that brings everyone to tears.

Mr. and Mrs. Mellark are conspicuously absent.

o-o-o

Every time Katniss sees Rye and Libby in the weeks that follow, they are miserable. Rye tells them that he's being bombarded with advice and interference and expectations from his mother. She banned Brann from the bakery as soon as he announced the apprenticeship, and now expects Rye to cover more and more shifts, to work early in the morning and late in the evening. And Libby is always sick. She can't keep down food, she can't even get out of bed most days. Rye is beside himself, between the long hours he puts in at the Justice building and the bakery he can't be there for his sick wife as much as she needs. Katniss spends evenings helping Libby, but there's only so much she can do with her own job and the hunting she still does when the weather allows.

It all comes to a head the day in early December that the midwife tells Libby she's expecting twins, and warns her that she'll need to stay in bed if there's any hope of getting them here safely. Rye has always been his mother's favourite, but when he tells his parents he cannot work at the bakery any longer the resulting familial argument is, by all accounts, brutal. Delly, who lives two doors down from the bakery, recounts all she heard the day after when she visits Katniss and Mr. Cartwright in the shop.

Rye is quietly stoic, just like first Peeta and then Brann were, accepting his parents' rejection without complaint. But Katniss can see the sadness that haunts all three brothers.

Katniss expects to see the baker take on an apprentice, the bakery continues to be busy. But from what she can tell in walks past Mellark's and talk around the square, he doesn't. Winter comes, and she sometimes sees him shovelling snow from the bakery steps. Sometimes feels his gaze on her retreating back. Nothing more.

The twins are born two days into the new year, early but healthy. Two tiny boys who seem to patch the rift between Rye and his folks.

It takes two full weeks before Katniss and Peeta can meet their nephews. Mrs. Mellark practically takes up residence at Rye's house, and Peeta won't risk upsetting Libby or the babies by showing his face around his mother. Katniss aches with the unfairness of it. But when Peeta finally holds one of the babies, his large hand cupping a tiny, downy head reverently, Katniss aches in a different way. She finds herself, in quiet moments, dreaming of a different world. A world, somewhere in the future, with no Games and no Capitol. A world where Peeta's child could be safe.

o-o-o

Spring is still a month away the night Rye appears on their doorstep, pale and shaking. He blurts out his message before they've even ushered him over the threshold.

Mrs. Mellark is dead.

Apoplexy, he tells them. A stroke. She was in the bakery, shouting as usual. Then simply stopped. Dead before she even hit the floor.

Katniss bundles up and walks through the silent streets to fetch Brann. The three Mellark brothers, half orphans now, sit dazed in the little house on the border of Town and the Seam. They pass a bottle of white liquor among them and talk in hushed tones deep into the night, long after Katniss retires.

She awakens when Peeta climbs into their bed only an hour before dawn. She gathers him in her arms, holding him tightly as sobs shake his body. Katniss understands that he's not mourning his mother, not the woman she was anyway. But she knows him, knows his optimistic nature, knows he'd hoped that someday his mother might apologize, might become the mother he deserved. She comforts him while he mourns that lost dream.

Only Rye goes to the burial. He tells them of the too-shallow hole carved from the still-frozen ground, the plain pine box, the desolate graveyard where only he, his father, and the gravedigger bore witness to her interment.

Just days later, Peeta's father shows up on their doorstep. Katniss isn't surprised, but she has nothing to say to the man who abandoned his son - her husband - more than two years earlier. She grabs her shawl, intending on walking to the Seam, to give Peeta and his father a chance to talk privately. But Peeta surprises her by grabbing her arm, a tacit entreaty for her to stay.

Peeta doesn't invite his father to sit down, doesn't offer any hospitality. They stand awkwardly just inside the door, all three. Wordless. Peeta's firm grip on her hand begs her to stay with him, but also asks for her silence. Mr. Mellark is the first to speak. "Your mother," he begins, but Peeta cuts him off.

"We know." The words are clipped, sharper than anything Katniss has ever heard him say. Mr. Mellark, too, seems taken aback, his eyes widening.

"I, well, ah," he struggles. Peeta regards his father with an impassive expression, but the death grip he has on Katniss's hand, and the pulse she sees leaping in his throat, speak to his internal strife. Mr. Mellark doesn't seem to notice. "You can come back to the bakery now, Peeta," he says. "Now that she's gone, you can start preparing to take over for me." There's a smile playing around Mr. Mellark's lips. But Katniss can feel the tension in Peeta's body, can feel the anger that has only grown with every one of his father's words.

"No."

Peeta's father physically recoils, surprise plain on his haggard face. He regards his son with shocked eyes, and Katniss wonders what he sees. The man standing beside her is not the boy that was abandoned years ago. "But-" Mr. Mellark starts. Peeta again interrupts him.

"No," he repeats. "No, I won't work with you. I want nothing to do with you."

"The bakery is your rightful place," he says. "You're a Mellark."

"If being a Mellark means turning your back on your child then I want no part of the name!" Peeta snaps, and his father flinches. "You abandoned me. You let her use me as a punching bag. You chose her. No, you chose your own cowardice over your children."

"It wasn't my fault," Mr. Mellark whispers.

Peeta gasps, a tiny sound of shock and fury. "Get out," he says, storming towards the front door and holding it open until the icy air that leeches in jolts his dumbfounded father into leaving.

He closes the door deceptively softly, turns the bolt with a precise flick of his wrist. There's a pause, where all of the world seems to hold its breath. Then Peeta erupts. With a low growl, he strikes out at a lamp and knocks it across the room where it shatters, lamp oil leaching into the floorboards.

Katniss has never seen him like this, her husband who has only ever radiated sweetness and light is utterly furious, his rage is visceral, flowing from him in waves. He paces, pulling his hair, cursing, words Katniss has never heard pass his lips before. Wild-eyed, he lashes out again, this time it's a chair that bears the brunt of his wrath. The sound of splintering wood seems to pull him from his mania, and he slumps against the wall, breathing heavily.

Katniss remains frozen, uncertain how to approach him. She's not afraid; she knows he'd never hurt her, never hurt another person. But she's wary nonetheless. It's only when his breathing hitches that she breaks free of her uncertainty, running the few steps between them on silent feet. He falls into her arms, shaking, and she holds his weight, holds him tightly through the emotional storm.

They somehow stagger to the sofa, still joined, and stay there together as the darkness creeps in, time immeasurable, lost to the comfort of each other's arms. It's cold and dark when Peeta's arms loosen, when he pulls back just enough to meet his wife's eyes. "I'm so sorry," he rasps.

"It's just a lamp," she starts, but he shakes his head.

"I shouldn't have said no to him. We'd have more money if I went back to the bakery. It would be easier." Katniss shakes her head vehemently. They're not wealthy, but they're making ends meet, are even able to help her mother and sister a little. And even if they weren't, she would never ask Peeta to go back to that place. His happiness is worth so much more to her than that.

"It'll be okay," she tells him. "We have each other."

o-o-o

Winter bleeds into spring. Katniss and Peeta celebrate their first anniversary with a picnic in bed as thunderstorms rage through the district. He asks her if she has any regrets, and when she searches her heart she can find none. He's filled her life in ways she hadn't dared dream of. She's happier than she ever imagined possible. "You complete me," she whispers before pressing him into the pillows, showering him with gentle kisses.

"You complete me too," he pants into her flesh, over and over as the rain lashes outside their cozy nest.

o-o-o

Reaping day is sticky and sultry, the humid air pressing on the children standing miserably in the pens spread out across the square. Prim has five slips in the bowl this year, and while Katniss knows that's not much, especially compared to so many others in the Seam, she's still worried about her sweet little sister.

Prim isn't called. The chosen girl is Seam, they almost always are. But instead of walking to the stage with a shell-shocked expression, or shuffling and sobbing, she stands pat in the pens. Effie Trinket, the crazy-haired Capitol escort, calls her name four, five times before peacekeepers descend to drag the girl to the stage. But it takes them a long while to find her, because the other children, indeed the entire district, stand silent instead of pointing her out.

They have to drag her to the stage, kicking, screaming like a banshee. It's takes three of them to hold her still while the clearly shaken escort selects the next name.

The same thing happens with the boy, also Seam. Peacekeepers start searching for him as soon as his name is called. When they find him he fights too, not just screaming but shouting sedition. One of the peacekeepers, a younger one, clearly sent to Twelve just for the Reaping, slams the butt of his gun into the young boy's head, silencing him, and they drag him, unconscious and bleeding, to the stage.

Murmurs in the crowd increase to shouts. One of the spectators throws a rock, and then it's pandemonium. Screaming children flee as peacekeepers, faces covered and guns raised, storm into the crowd.

Katniss runs to Prim before she can even think about whether it's a good idea. Peeta and her mother are right behind, and the four hide out in the little house on the border of town until things quiet down in the square.

Reaping recaps during mandatory viewing explain that technical difficulties prevent the broadcast of the tribute selection in District Twelve.

An uncomfortable quiet falls over the district, a peace that's not peaceful. A feeling that something is coming, and that it can only be bad for everyone. When the two Seam kids make their debut on television in the tribute parade they're polished and uninjured, but completely vacant-eyed.

They both die in the first few minutes of the Hunger Games, slaughtered in the initial bloodbath at the cornucopia.

o-o-o

Katniss stands at the train station one eerily quiet afternoon about three weeks after the Reaping with Mr. Cartwright, waiting for a shipment of leather and supplies. At the sound of the approaching train, they look at each other in confusion. The sound is all wrong.

It quickly becomes apparent why. Instead of the small cargo train, a huge train pulls into the station, so many passenger cars that they stretch beyond the edges of the platform. When the first doors open a flood of white pours out. Katniss gapes, but Mr. Cartwright's hand gripping her shoulder hard jerks her out of her stupor. "The Hob," he hisses. "Run!"

She's off before he can say anything else, but he doesn't need to anyway. They both know. An entire train full of peacekeepers can only be bad for the district, and especially for those who live and work on the fringes. Like Peeta.

She's breathless, nauseous when she bursts through the doors of the Hob, startling the Seam folk gathered inside, silence quickly spreading through the assembly. The old warehouse is full, the early shift in the mines has let out and every stall is teeming with customers. But everyone freezes and turns to regard her warily. Peeta is beside her in a heartbeat, clutching at her, searching for injury, for some reason she's come running on a workday, terror in her eyes. "Peacekeepers," is all she manages to wheeze, but the effect is instantaneous, people start gathering what wares they can salvage. Throwing things into boxes and bags. Emptying the Hob and rushing out the back door.

Peeta holds her a few precious moments, helping to calm her racing heart. "Hundreds of them," she murmurs. "On the train."

She's not ready to let go when he pulls away, but she understands; they might only have minutes before the authorities arrive. People's livelihoods, people's very lives hang in the balance here. They both join their friends and neighbours in salvaging what they can. No one panics, but there's a heaviness to the mood.

It happens more quickly that she's expecting and it's worse than she could have imagined. Peacekeepers show up not with guns, but with torches.

When smoke starts curling in the windows expressions turn grim. Every cranny and crevice of the old building is permeated with coal dust. Fire is licking the walls before a quarter of the stalls have been emptied. Very quickly, the few windows are blocked by clouds of ash, and the Hob is shrouded in darkness.

Smoke scratches Katniss's throat, stings her eyes when Peeta pushes her towards the door, Sae's little granddaughter, Lila, clutched between them. He presses the child into her arms. "Get her to safety," he says.

"I can't leave you," Katniss argues, but he kisses her quickly.

"I'll be right behind you."

She rushes from the building, coughing as the thick, black smoke invades her lungs, making little Lila cry and gasp. Outside, it's chaos; flames leap from the roof of the abandoned warehouse that served as the Hob, bystanders mill around gawking and yelling. Madness. She searches for Sae, or for someone to hand Lila to, so she can find Peeta, but she only gets twenty feet before the front of the warehouse collapses.

Screams ring and Katniss is only barely aware that they're coming from her.

It's all a blur. Arms grasp her, urgent voices implore her to stop, warn her that she'll attract the peacekeepers, endanger them all. When her mind clears, she's in her house, the little home she shares with Peeta.

But he's not there.

Prim is, cradling Katniss, murmuring soft nonsense in her ear. "Shh," she sighs. "It's going to be all right." But Katniss can hear the tremor in her sister's voice that belies her words of comfort.

Time stops as Katniss sits with her sister, eyes fixed unblinking on the door. Footsteps thunder by outside, at first near continually, then slowing to ones and twos. And finally, silence, deep and horrible. Katniss has never believed in the gods of old, never trusted in anything she couldn't see or touch. But as she sits on the floor in the summer heat she prays with every shuddering breath. Please come back to me. Please come back to me.

She thinks back more than nine years ago, imagines her mother huddled in horror, waiting for word of her husband. Word that never came. And in that brief moment of reflection, Katniss forgives her mother, because she finally understands.

When Mrs. Everdeen bursts through the front door, followed by three men carrying a fourth between them, Katniss doesn't react immediately. Pots of water are set to boil on her stove while the men deposit someone on her kitchen table, grimy and smoke-streaked and far too still. She only snaps out of her stupor when her mother begins attending to the man on the table, cutting away his trousers.

Grey linen, with frayed cuffs.

The ones Katniss had watched her husband mending just the night before, while they were sitting on their couch chatting.

She's had plenty of experience with injured miners being left on her mother's kitchen table, blackened and bloodied. Usually, she'd make a run for the woods, spend the day hunting. Only come back when the unfortunate soul had been attended to. Or had died.

But this is not her mother's kitchen table. And it's not a miner who lays unmoving in her kitchen.

The world whirls around Katniss as she clutches the back of a chair, swaying. Prim and Mrs. Everdeen work on their patient with grim expressions, boiling water and mixing herbs from her mother's bag. The men in her kitchen provide explanations that she simply can't comprehend. In the middle of the flurry she meets her mother's eyes. "Mama?" she whimpers, child-like, sounding nothing like the twenty-year-old woman she is. The older woman's expression softens with compassion.

"I gave him sleep syrup, Katniss." Mrs. Everdeen offers nothing else, but it's enough for Katniss to know that her husband is simply asleep, not gone. Not yet anyway, though she can tell by her mother's expression that Peeta's survival is by no means a sure thing. She nods, and her mother goes back to work. Katniss remains, held motionless by some unknown force, unable to help but unable to run. She'd often wondered, in the past, why the families of the sick and wounded remained ringed around her mother's kitchen table, helplessly. Wondered why they didn't leave. Why they stayed to watch. And now she knows. It's because there is no choice.

She allows herself, finally, to look at his face. Her Peeta. He's covered in filth; sweat and tears have cut tracks through the mess, hinting at the pale skin beneath. She wets a cloth and methodically cleans away the ash and grime. There's an angry red streak stretching from his neck to his temple, where he's been fire-bitten, and his right eyebrow has been half singed away. His hair has been singed too, the golden curls crispy and brittle under her fingers.

Through all of her ministrations Peeta remains completely, terrifyingly still. Unresponsive. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest to indicate he's there at all. It feels strange to her, to be so physically close to someone who's so distant. Peeta might as well be on the moon right now, he'd be no harder to reach. And though her kitchen is full of people, filled with the low hum of voices and shuffling feet, she's never felt lonelier.

Twilight bathes her kitchen in a surreal blueish glow when Peeta begins to stir. Katniss's joy at seeing brief glimpses of his pain-hazed eyes is tempered by the abject agony she can see he's in. Mrs. Everdeen is still working on Peeta's leg, which was badly injured in the Hob's collapse, Prim is tending to his burns. Even in their expert hands, it takes a long time. Moans and pained cries escape each time they touch him. Prim goes through the meager store of painkillers in Mrs. Everdeen's bag, the kind usually accessible only to doctors. They are hard to come by, expensive, and always in demand. They try to save the strongest ones for the worst pain, try to save them for those who are actually in the process of dying, to ease them out of the world. Katniss knows this, but she has no ability to watch suffering, especially when it's her husband.

Since Peeta is regaining consciousness, they decide instead on an herbal concoction he can take by mouth. "That won't be enough," Katniss says. Her sister and mother turn in confusion, as if they'd forgotten she was there. "That won't be enough," she says again. "That will barely knock out a headache."

"We'll combine it with sleep syrup, Katniss, and he'll manage it-" her mother begins calmly.

"Just give him the medicine!" Katniss cries. "Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand!"

Peeta begins stirring at her voice, trying to reach her and groaning as each movement disrupts his shattered leg, shifts his burned skin. "He needs you to be calm, Katniss." her mother says more firmly. "He needs you to be the strong one now."

It's exactly the right thing to say to get through to Katniss. She resumes her spot at the head of the table, stroking Peeta's hair, clutching his hand. "Shhh," she says softly, right next to his ear. "I'm here. Be still, Peeta. It's okay now."

She sings softly, just for him, as he drifts in and out of consciousness, the sleep syrup not quite enough to push him into complete oblivion.

The young Seam men who'd pulled Peeta from the burning rubble of the Hob stay the entire time, keeping watch, triaging other people who come by the little house looking for the healer. When Mrs. Everdeen finally finishes splinting Peeta's leg, the men are again called on to help move him. Though they're as gentle as they can be, Peeta screams in agony. Prim holds Katniss as she sobs, sick to her stomach and useless.

Mrs. Everdeen and Prim attend to the other men and women who have been patiently waiting in Katniss's kitchen and just outside the little house, but Katniss pays them no attention. Once she's calmed, she kneels on the floor next to the bed, holding Peeta's hand, her face level with his, only inches apart. She strokes his hair, the rough stubble coming in on his jaw, the thick column of his neck on the unburned side. His eyes are closed but she knows he's not asleep; his breathing is too shallow, too quick. "Katniss," he whispers.

"Shhh, save your strength," she says softly. She doesn't want him to stress himself. And truthfully, she's not sure she's ready to hear what he has to say. But he's undeterred.

"If I don't make it-"

"No," she whimpers, her resolve to stay strong cracking along the seams. "You're going to be fine, Peeta. It's going to be okay."

"Please, Katniss," he begs.

"No!" she wails. "You're not leaving me here alone!"

"I'm sorry," he whispers, trembling so much that the bed shakes beneath him. Tears squeeze from beneath his tightly closed lids. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't give up," she begs, kissing away his tears, cradling his head against her chest as best she can without jarring him, but he whimpers in pain anyway.

It's fully dark when Mrs. Everdeen pokes her head into the bedroom, holding a candle aloft. Katniss glances up from her station on the floor, Peeta's hand still clutched tightly in her own. He has been alternating between a restless half-sleep and an agonized half-wake, never quite succumbing to the unconsciousness that would be its own form of escape. He moans or cries out with every movement, every sharp breath. Katniss hasn't dared to leave him, even for a moment. As if with her presence alone, she can safeguard his life, or at least ease his suffering a little. "There's someone here to see you," her mother says softly. "Shall I bring her in?" Katniss doesn't want to see anyone, but she nods, too tired to fight.

A figure clad head to toe in black appears in the doorway, only when she pulls back her hood and golden curls spill out does Katniss realize it's Madge. Katniss hasn't seen much lately of the girl who used to be her closest friend. Though the little house on the border of Town is much closer to the mayor's mansion than her old house in the Seam, Madge has never visited. They'd grown apart after her toasting, or maybe even before, Katniss thinks sadly. But she's so grateful to see her old friend now.

Mrs. Everdeen moves to the bed. "Go," she whispers, then begins to fuss over Peeta, feeling his forehead and throat, peeking beneath bandages as he whimpers. Katniss stands and walks over to Madge, casting an uneasy glance at Peeta as she does.

"I can't stay," Madge says quietly. "There's a new curfew, and Peacekeeper patrols everywhere." She presses a small, damp cardboard box into Katniss's hands. "But I wanted to bring you these." Katniss slides the lid off the box, revealing half a dozen vials of clear liquid. "They're my mother's," Madge continues. "She said I could take them. Use them, please."

Mrs. Everdeen steps over, taking the box with a shocked expression, and immediately bringing the contents to the bedside while Katniss and Madge look on.

Peeta's teeth are gritted and his flesh shines with sweat. Katniss's mother fills a syringe with clear liquid from one of the vials and shoots it into his arm. Almost immediately, his face begins to relax.

"What is that stuff?" Katniss asks, her eyes wide.

"It's from the Capitol. It's called morphling," Madge says. "I - I hope it's enough."

Tears prick at Katniss's eyes as she looks at her husband, his breathing now calm and even. "Madge, I-" she starts, but can't continue, overwhelmed by gratitude. And though it's been months since they last spoke, Katniss doesn't hesitate to hug her friend. When Madge's arms wrap tightly around her she breaks, tears spilling over, wetting Madge's golden curls.

She can hear Madge sniffle as they cling, like two terrified twelve-year-olds on Reaping day. Madge strokes her hair, making soft, shushing sounds, and Katniss relaxes, just a little. Finally they pull apart, and with a lingering kiss on the cheek, Madge disappears into the night.

The following days are tense. Peeta's injuries are grave, his leg crushed, his lungs damaged. He spends much of the time in a morphling haze, achy and nauseous when he's awake, asleep he's plagued by nightmares he can't seem to escape from. Katniss never leaves his side, sleeping in short spurts on the floor beside their bed, unwilling to risk jostling him by climbing in beside him. And though she's never been like Prim and her mother, never had any healer leanings, she cares for him with single-minded focus.

Peeta improves, inch by excruciating inch. On the fourth morning after the attack Katniss is awakened by a gentle hand stroking her hair. She'd fallen asleep on the floor again, sitting upright this time, leaning against the bedframe with her head on the mattress beside him. "Peeta," she gasps as she meets his eyes, pain-filled but clear for the first time in what feels like forever.

"Hi," he whispers, his voice hoarse from smoke damage and disuse.

She scrambles from the floor to stand over him. "Are you hungry?" she asks hopefully. She's only managed to get him to take water and a little broth since the accident; already, his cheeks look hollow. But he shakes his head.

"Lie with me, Katniss," he says.

"I don't want to hurt you," she protests, even as she looks longingly at their bed, at the man she loves so desperately lying in it. He shakes his head.

"Please. I need to hold you." It's all she needs to hear. She climbs in beside him, as carefully as she can. She sees him flinch and grit his teeth, but when she tries to slide off the bed again he grabs her arm with surprising strength. "Please," he begs, scarcely a breath.

It takes some manoeuvring to find a position where she's not touching any of his burned skin, not hurting his leg, but finally they're wrapped in each other's arms, clinging. "Thank you for not giving up on me," he breathes against her hair, and her heart clenches.

"I never will," she says. Surely he knows that? But so many others in his life have abandoned him, and weak and terrified as he must be, she understands his need for reassurance. "I'll be here, always." Peeta presses his lips to her temple, and for the briefest of moments she can pretend that everything is back to normal.

But nothing is normal in district Twelve anymore, at least not the normal that Katniss is used to.

Though she's terribly reluctant to leave Peeta, Katniss has to go back to work. Their small cache of coins is nearly depleted, their cupboards frighteningly bare.

Mrs. Everdeen arrives with the dawn to care for Peeta with a sympathetic smile and a loaf of bread, and Katniss heads to the centre of town. Though only a little over a week has passed, the district has been transformed. Stockades and whipping posts and other devices of torment and torture have been erected in the square. And those are only the most obvious differences.

Mr. Cartwright hugs Katniss tightly when she slips into the shop, and she's reminded again how fortunate she is to be his apprentice, to have the stability of a merchant job now that Peeta is too maimed to work, at least right now. As they work side-by-side, repairing shoes using only capitol-grade leather, he tells her in hushed tones about the more insidious happenings. Warning her.

Katniss takes the long way home that evening, walking through the meadow to skirt along the edge of the fence. And though she's not surprised to find the fence humming, she's disheartened. But she plasters on a brave face when she gets home, and instead tells Peeta gentle stories about the miller's children while she makes dinner.

The new peacekeepers who arrived on the train that awful day don't leave; in fact, even more come, and each batch seems nastier than the one before. Armed patrols march through the square day and night, harassing the populous. Old man Cray disappears, along with most of the previous peacekeeping corps, replaced by a new head peacekeeper named Thread, a strict and imperious man with a decidedly sadistic bend. There's fear and unease everywhere. The installations in the square see plenty of action as people are dragged in and punished for offenses so long overlooked they've forgotten that they are illegal.

The fence remains electrified, twenty-four hours a day.

Mrs. Everdeen comes each morning to help Peeta. His brothers too make visits, although rarely, unwilling to attract too much attention from the peacekeepers, lest Peeta's precarious position be revealed. At first, Peeta is so focussed on healing that in his pain and exhaustion he barely asks anyone any questions about the world outside his bedroom walls, for which Katniss is grateful. But gradually, day by day, he gains strength. He's awake more, can move more without as much pain, begins doing therapy exercises that Mrs. Everdeen guides him through. As much as she wants to shield him, Katniss knows she can't keep the truth from him forever.

They're struggling. Badly.

Wages in the mines get cut, then cut again. No one has money to spend in the merchant shops, even for something as essential as shoe repair. The trains from the Capitol are frequently delayed, what supplies they do send are cut-rate and often defiled.

Peeta can't work, not as injured and virtually bedridden as he is. And even if he could, the Hob is gone, and no one in Twelve is crazy enough to rebuild with the new peacekeepers monitoring their every move.

Katniss is careful and frugal, she's had to stretch supplies and make do with less practically her whole life. But this is a new level of poor. What coins she does bring in are nearly useless with the shops perpetually empty. The woods, full of food, are permanently off limits now.

Only the small garden that Peeta had so lovingly attended before his accident provides them any relief. And even that isn't reliable. Other families are desperate enough to sneak into their tiny yard, steal the small squash unripe from the vine. Standing in the gathering gloom one evening, with only a handful of green tomatoes clinging to the plants, waves of hopelessness batter Katniss. She feels stretched too thin, giving more than she can spare to ensure Prim doesn't have to take out tesserae, carefully arranging her own plate so that Peeta won't see how little she's eating. She gives him the majority of the food, knowing he needs the sustenance for healing. But it isn't enough, she knows.

She realizes that he knows too, despite how hard she's tried to keep it from him. "Stop," he says, standing behind her in their kitchen as she plates their meagre meal. He's leaning on a crutch, designed by Mrs. Everdeen and constructed by Brann. He can't yet put weight on his injured leg, and his burns still require daily treatments with the poultices the Everdeen women make, but he looks more like her Peeta now with his singed eyebrow growing back and the determined look on his handsome face as he turns her to face him, his hand on her shoulder gentle but insistent. "No more secrets, Katniss," he says steadily, but with no anger. "I know you're trying to protect me. But it stops now."

"What are we going to do?" she whispers, and he pulls he into his embrace, his arms not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong.

"We're going to figure it out together."


End file.
